Nerve Damage
by CrossyCross
Summary: Shirou converts his nerves into makeshift magic circuits everytime he needs to use magic. A human body has millions of nerves. A magus has on average twenty circuits...maybe he's on to something there...
1. Chapter 1

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**You're probably wondering why after so long being dormant, the first thing I do is make another fic. It's because I'm kinda stuck in Virtue of Knowledge, while THIS is an entirely new idea that I'm actually motivated to write with. In the first place, I write for my own amusement, so I write whatever the hell I want to write.**

**Maybe after some time writing this I'll get some inspiration for Virtue, but for now, leave it. It's more or less dead.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

"Honestly Emiya-san, you don't have to do all of it in a day. You can continue it tomorrow if you like." Issei couldn't believe how lucky the school was sometimes to have Shirou Emiya in it. The boy was nice, polite, and so unbelievably helpful it wasn't even funny.

Shirou just smiled and shook his head. "It's fine Issei. I prefer dealing with problems all at once anyway. Just leave the list of things to fix here and go back home. I'll finish them all today."

Issei sighed, then bowed in thanks. "Once again, thank you Emiya." He said before leaving.

Shirou nodded as the other teen left, before looking at the broken heater in front of him. The truth was, he needed Issei gone if he was to fix the broken appliances, seeing as his method of fixing them would look completely impossible if other people saw him.

He knelt in front of the heater, placing a hand upon the broken machine and imagining the trigger that would activate his magic. "Trace on."

In his eyes it appeared, an incredibly complex and gigantic web made out of thousands of strands of golden threads. He smiled, and imagined a single strand getting set on fire. That was his trigger, and a single magic circuit came to life inside of him.

With that, he used his magic to analyze the heater, its entire structure becoming known to him in an instant. The smile widened as he figured out the problem.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It took hours before he finished with everything, and by that time, it was already late at night. Shirou screwed back the cover from the last appliance he had fixed; an AC.

"Well, that's the last of them." He muttered, crossing out the final unmarked appliance on the list, before packing away his things and walking out of the room and towards the exit of the school.

It was as he neared said exit that he started hearing something unusual. Specifically, the sound of impacts, of steel meeting steel in a continuous cacophony of noise.

A shiver of dread running down his spine, he slowly walked out, trying his best to remain undetected as he attempted to see what was causing such noise. Were there hooligans out there trying to deface the school?

The reality was worse.

Two figures, one red with black and white swords, and another blue with a red spear, fought each other. It was an image straight out of fantasy as he watched them fight with blows faster and stronger than anything he had ever seen. Their arms swung like pistons as they smashed their weapons together again and again, their blows making small shockwaves from the sheer force in them.

It was beyond anything he had ever thought possible. It was something that could exist only in stories, and in that instant, Shirou knew that those things fighting each other were not human. They were too great, too powerful, too skilled to be something so frail.

It was from a moment of respite as they leaped away from each other that the blue one spotted him, and Shirou felt terror shake his entire body as his eyes locked with the red ones of the spear-wielder.

"Tsk. A witness." He almost didn't hear the statement.

Shirou dropped his toolbox and ran. In his mind, several dozen strands set themselves on fire, and he felt his body warm up very slightly as his circuits activated and channeled prana. He directed the prana and filled his body with it, reinforcing it.

Reinforcing. The art of improving an object by filling its gaps and cracks with prana. Shirou himself used it frequently on himself, and it had gotten to the point that he could go up to almost thirty miles per hour if he wanted to.

Right now, he really wanted to do just that, and he put all his focus into putting one leg in front of the other as he ran away, the streets blurring out of focus at his speed.

A minute later, the school was but a speck in the distance, and he slowed down, going into normal human speeds then stopping, gasping for breath as his body sweated at the exertion.

'_What the hell were those two?'_He thought in terror. They had come out of nowhere, trying to kill each other. He couldn't quite wrap his head around the experience. "Still, at least I lost them."

The voice from above him almost made him lose control of his bowels. "That was some impressive running kid, but no, you didn't lose me."

He turned around, and above him on top of a streetlight, stood the blue spear-wielder, grinning maniacally. The spearman dropped down, several meters away, before readying his spear. "Any last words?"

For Shirou, the moment was in perfect clarity. The spearman was clear in his eyes, his muscled figure sleek and deadly and his crimson spear ready to stab and take out his heart. Moreover was the aura of ferality and killing intent coming from him, making him seem larger than life, more lethal than something that looked like a man, a monstrous wolf ready to pounce and rip out his throat.

Not human, his mind told him.

But then again, he wasn't normal either.

"Just two words." Shirou spoke, strangely calmly.

"Oho. And what would that be?" the spearman asked, smiling in amusement.

In Shirou's mind, the golden web was once more present. He prepared himself.

"Trace on."

And roughly two thousand six-hundred strands, the entirety of the web, set themselves on fire.

Three dozen glowing..._things_ manifested around Shirou, and launched themselves at the spearman at bullet speeds. In an instant, another set had appeared, and that too immediately flew at the warrior. It was an endless, strangely silent, stream, and no normal warrior could have stood up to that and survived.

Lancer was not a normal warrior. He was a heroic spirit, brought to existence by the power of the holy grail as servant Lancer, and he was anything BUT normal. The projectiles shot at him, all of them directed to maim and kill, and with barely any effort he used his spear to bat away the continuous stream of...words?

Words. The projectiles were words that formed swords. They were in a language that he couldn't understand, though each one evoked a feeling that hinted at their meaning. They were all the same, a hilt made of a..._harmonious_ feeling word that connected to the others, and a blade made of three _sharp_words that were so stretched they were almost straight. The three words were then bound together again and again, forming a blade that was more an elongated drill. The words themselves were made out of a glowing blue substance. _'Prana. They're made of prana.'_ he thought to himself.

'_Interesting. So he's a magus. Still think we should kill him, Bazett?'_He thought back to his master from their link. Out loud, "That's useless, boy. Projectiles are worthless against me as long as I can see their origin."

Shirou frowned, sweat beading down his forehead as he slowly backed away from the spearman. This was nowhere near his max capacity. It wasn't even a tenth, but then again, using his full output of prana four years ago had caused incredible pain the instant he had tried it, and his circuits had almost doubled now. Still, the fact that his attacks weren't working at all was worrying.

'_Let's try something different.'_He thought as he added two Words to the new blades he made. The prana cost doubled, but the swords had no difference other than the two Words wrapped around Unity, the word that served as the hilt.

Lancer scowled. "This is getting boring boy." He muttered, before his spear blocked the first of the new word-swords. The moment his spear touched the projectile, it shattered, turning into shards of glassy mana that then exploded upon contact with anything. All the other thirty-five swords did the same, shattering around him, covering him in a screen of blue glass, before detonating.

From out of the smoke he leaped away, more out of surprise than anything as he felt pain for the first time since his summoning. He put a finger to his cheek, where there was a miniscule, practically unnoticeable burn, then to his throat, where his skin had been cut, but so weakly that he wouldn't even bleed. There were a dozen other wounds all over his body, all completely worthless in terms of actual damage, but the fact that the teen had been able to wound him, even with C-rank magic resistance...was astonishing. That required either a lot of prana, or great skill in maximizing the piercing quality of spells.

The amount of prana in the air testified to the former. And the kid didn't even look tired, more worried at the meager results of his barrage, which would actually have fairly injured a servant without magic resistance. If he had allowed himself to be hit full on, anyway.

He thought back to his master. _'Bazzett, whoever this magus is, he's strong. Really strong. For your standards anyway. Fact is though, he's a magus, so it should actually be fine for him to know about the war. Want me to parley?'_

Far away, Bazzett answered. _'Yes. No need to cause unnecessary deaths, or piss off a strong magus.'_

Lancer nodded, lowering his spear and raising a hand in a peaceful gesture. "Hey kid, there's been a misunderstanding-" he stopped when he noticed the markings on the boy's hand, the bandages having gone undone from his movements. Command seals.

'_Bad news. The kid's a master. He just doesn't know it yet.'_He said back to his master.

For a moment, Bazzett pondered upon letting the boy escape and taking him down when he finally had his servant. But the thought of a servant powered by a magus powerful enough to get through Lancer's C-rank magic resistance made her instincts as an Enforcer take over.

'_Kill him, before he summons his servant. He's too much of a threat.'_

Lancer shrugged. _'Your call.'_ To Shirou, "Never mind kid. Looks like I still have to kill you." He lunged forward.

Shirou hadn't let his guard down. More of the exploding swords appeared, in almost double the numbers before. This time Lancer ran through them all. They exploded all around him, all direct hits, but thanks to his magic resistance, the damage was all superficial. He was almost within stabbing distance when half a dozen new swords appeared.

They didn't have the new words on the hilt, but the blades were much thicker, now being made of eight words instead of three. His instincts screamed at him, and he leaped backwards as the blades fired at him.

They shot at him faster than the others, three times as fast, and as they got within meters of him, they suddenly extended, elongating to three times their length in an instant. The sudden growth surprised him, and he only managed to deflect five. The forces inflicted upon his spear were incredible, enough to actually make him put an effort into deflecting them. The last one however, only grazed his shoulder.

Grazed was poor term to use, seeing as the speeding blade would have punched completely through his flesh if it had been a direct hit. As it was, it tore out a strip of Lancer's shoulder as he dodged at the last instant, although the blade looked half-corroded as it experienced the nullifying effects of Lancer's magic resistance.

Silence, in all three of the people present as they processed what had just happened.

In Shirou, there was relief in figuring out what could hurt his seemingly invincible enemy. Even if a combination of single Words of Rush, Extend, and six words of Impale cost almost four times as much prana as a normal Cut-Stab-Cut Word-blade. But if it could hurt the monster in front of him, then he was willing to spend all his Prana in that Word-blade.

In Lancer and Bazzett, there was sheer shock as they studied the magus, the _human_in front of them that had just displayed the capability to possibly kill a servant. If all of those new blades had hit, and at vital parts, then Lancer might just have gotten a fatal wound.

'_And he's only JUST starting to spend some effort into this. He doesn't look tired AT ALL from using so much prana.'_Lancer thought. Indeed, while Shirou was breathing heavily and sending out clouds of steam with the temperature of his breath, actual exhaustion from expending much of one's prana was not at all visible in his features.

Bazzett, from where she was hiding, took a deep breath. _'So he not only has the capability to focus and sharpen his spells, but also a lot of prana to spend? Screw this. Take him seriously Lancer. Take this boy down. I can only imagine what kind of terror he could be as a master.'_

'_Right there with you.'_Lancer affirmed. He readied himself into a stance, not at all bothered by his bleeding shoulder as Shirou manifested more and more of the eight-word blades. "Impressive kid, really impressive. Few can say they could stand up to a servant by themselves. As it is though, that makes you too much of a threat. Can't have you being a master in this war."

Shirou frowned in confusion, sweating at how hot his body felt, as if a full summer sun was beating down at him for four already. It was uncomfortable, but nowhere near lethal. Yet. "I don't know what this 'servant' and 'master' you're talking about. All I know is that you've tried to kill me. Do we really have to do this?" One last chance for leaving peacefully, then he'd go serious.

The spearman shook his head. "Poor idiot. You don't even know what's happening in your very own city, do you?" He charged. "Sorry, but you're too much of a threat to leave alive!"

Shirou gritted his teeth as he activated a fourth of all of his circuits. By now, he had created over a hundred of the Impale blades during their short exchange, and with a fourth of his circuits activated, a stream of fifty of those was initiated. A hundred and fifty swords were launched as an initial volley, with fifty more constantly rushing at Lancer.

Lancer merely grinned, batting away the barrage, as he raised the respect he had for the sword magus a notch. To make him have to use the power of his lance, the magus must be great indeed.

"You should be honored, kid. I only use this for the best of my enemies."

Shirou frowned. The man was grinning. Why? He was pinned down, and too far away to launch a charge lest he be impaled. Still, apparently he was going to use his trump. Best prepare himself. He readied Words of protection in his mind, set to unleash them the moment the spearman attacked.

"**Gae-"**

Lethal killing intent filled the street, and Shirou choked, body shaking as a feeling of sudden impending **death** shook his body. What could cause such a feeling?!

"**-BOLG!"**

Reality was rewritten. What was 'the spear is thrust so the heart is pierced' turned into 'the heart is pierced, so the spear must have struck'. Such was the power of a noble phantasm. Mere mortals stood no chance.

Lancer disappeared. One moment, pinned down from the projectiles. The next, Shirou was on his back, Gae Bolg firmly lodged in his heart, Lancer gripping the death-dealing instrument. The last of Shirou's Word-blades slammed uselessly against the ground Lancer had been standing on an instant ago.

Lancer grinned. "Good fight." He twisted the spear, then pulled it out, the blood indistinguishable against the crimson spear. He walked away, fading away as he astralized. _'Pity I couldn't fight your servant. It would have been a great fight.'_He had no doubt the boy would have summoned something monstrous. Exactly the reason why he had to die now.

"And I didn't even get your name. Rude of me." Lancer muttered as he surveyed the damage. The street was full of pinpricks and grazes from the first two types of swords, but the third kind truly brought home the lethality of the magus. The impaling blades had torn wide holes deep into the pavement, to the point that it seemed as if somekind of super-mole had been digging into the ground.

"Good fight." He repeated, and those were the last things Shirou heard from the servant as his vision started fading.

'_So this is it? All my dreams of being a hero? Gone.'_

He tried to breath, but his lungs wouldn't work, and his heart tried futilely to beat.

'_I guess...I failed...then...'_

Faintly, he heard voices

"...mmit!...oo late!...to do?"

"...eave hi...not...our faul..."

"...assmate!...nnocent..."

He faded away.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sore.

That was all that Shirou Emiya could say as he blearily stood up from the middle of the street.

_'Oh god, it feels like a truck ran over me...what the hell? What happened here?'_He thought as he stood up, noticing the destruction all around him, the pitted concrete, with its grazes and craters and holes, looked like a battlefield.

Then he remembered. The blue spearman!

Immediately, his hand shot to his chest, where instead of an open wound he found...flesh? Indeed, though his body was extremely sore, his chest, where the spearman had dealt him a fatal blow, was completely healed.

Was it just a dream? No. The damage was here, all around him, so was the blood on the ground and the hole on his shirt.

Shirou frowned. How had he survived? He asked, but as he dwelt more on the memory, he came to an even more important question: how would he keep surviving?

Looking frantically around him for signs of the spearman, Shirou sighed in relief, before reinforcing himself and running to his house.

'Servant', 'master'. Those were the words the killer had been bandying around. They seemed so familiar...

Shirou almost tripped as he remembered.

_'The Grail War. A war between 7 magi masters and 7 summoned heroic spirits in the form of servants, all for the prize of a wish. The last war happened at the same time as the great fire that orphaned you. Coincidence? I think not. Still, it only happens every sixty years, so you don't have to worry your sword-obsessed little head about it until you're much older. Now get back to the lesson! This is 'Hunt'...'_

His teacher had only mentioned it in passing, but it was enough. Shirou had faced a servant, a heroic spirit given material form and powered by the legends of his feats...no wonder Shirou had stood no chance.

_'Still, to think that I actually forced one to use his weapon's full power. I don't know whether to be proud of myself, or terrified.'_On one hand, it was a sign of his skill as a magus. On the other, the spearman would take him seriously right at the start the next time they met.

_'Both then.'_He decided as he arrived at his house, panting heavily from exertion as his already sore body protested against his decision to run reinforced. He stepped inside, and immediately came to the kitchen, opening the fridge and pouring the cooled water into a cup. He couldn't drink it fast enough, and poured the cup full twice more. Finished, he let out a sigh of pleasure as he felt his uncomfortably warm body starting to cool down.

He leaned against the counter, wondering what next to do. "Servants. Holy grail war. Wasn't that supposed to happen decades from now?" It _should_, but apparently it had decided to come early.

Shirou gritted his teeth in frustration. "And I don't even know how to summon a servant. Without one, I'm practically defenseless." That wasn't what he was truly worried about however.

The innocents...the thought of destruction just like the last war occurring set his teeth on edge. He had to keep a disaster like that from happening. And he needed a servant to have a chance of doing that.

_'It's what a hero would do...'_

"Then you should have summoned one the moment you got here, kid, instead of standing around like an idiot." The spearman's voice came out of nowhere, and Shirou froze, nearly unable to believe his luck. Or lack of it anyway.

He dodged at the last second, reinforcing his tired legs and leaping to the side, narrowly avoiding the spear that would have stabbed through his skull as Lancer crashed through the windows.

The blue servant grinned. "Well what do you know? There I was, bringing my master to your corpse to find out just what makes you tick, when instead of a corpse we find nothing? I don't know what you did to survive, boy, but you're not going to summon anything if my master has anything to say about it." He lunged.

But Shirou had already started running away, and behind him, numerous Word-blades fired at the Servant. Two Words of 'Push' were added to the basic Cut-Pierce-Cut, making Lancer put more effort into deflecting the projectiles.

It was meant to distract, not to hurt, for Shirou had no doubts about his skill to defeat as legendary hero. As of now, he was simply trying to get to his workshop, hoping against hope that he would find _something_there that would aid him in survival.

His reinforced legs pounded against the floor as he leapt out of a doorway leading outside, barely avoiding Lancer as he stabbed down where he had been just a second ago.

"Tricky little fox, aren't you?" Lancer growled as a dozen more Word-blades fired at him. Scowling, instead of blocking, he actually charged straight into them. For Lancer, this proved to be a wise move, as he barely bruised from the impacts, and it enabled him to get close enough to strike at Shirou.

The sword incarnation managed to twist at the last second, and instead of getting lanced through the gut, he found himself suffering only a hard blow to his chest that broke several ribs and threw him bodily down into the doorway of his workshop.

For Shirou, the pain was nowhere near the pain of creating another magic circuit, but at least he had good chances at surviving those. This...this was doom. There was no way out. He had effectively cornered himself.

_'I don't want to die...'_

Unbeknownst to him, the summoning circle on the shed's floor started lighting up, reacting to the mass of prana Shirou was channeling.

Shakily, he stood up, idly noticing the two cylinders of diamond he had tinkered with last night on a table. Hope filled him, and he grabbed them, one in each hand, channeling prana through each one.

_'I haven't fulfilled my promise yet...'_

Lancer walked down just in time to see twin glowing blades of prana burst out of the handles. Two and half feet long, straight and double-edged, like a longsword, but a longsword didn't have tiny jagged blades spinning across the middle of its length. If one were to disassemble it, one would see that the blade was made of a multitude of Cuts and Pierces melded so perfectly together as to go into the shape of an actual sword, and that the spinning chainteeth were miniature Words of Rip and Tear used side by side with Spins in the inside of the blade to make the spinning teeth.

Behind Shirou, half a hundred Impale-blades fired at Lancer, who suddenly found the narrow confines of the shed detrimental to dodging. With skill born of a thousand battles and reflexes honed to a razor edge, he fluidly moved his spear to block each and every projectile fired at him.

The display only proved to heighten the difference between them, as Lancer stood in one place, moving with inhuman speed to bat away a barrage that would have overwhelmed and torn apart any mortal that faced it.

The deflected Word-blades scattered everywhichway, tearing apart the research notes, mechanical parts, and clutter that was scattered all over the shed.

Shirou, against all sanity, charged. Lancer glanced at him, and grinned as he proceeded to not only weather the storm of Words, but also Shirou's flurry of sword-blows. His spear was a blur as it moved perfectly to defend against them both, and it was Shirou who became worried as even with his reinforced strength, each protective blow from Lancer made his arms tremble from the impact, and he could already sense minute cracks forming on the reinforced diamond hilt.

Finally, Lancer had enough, and with insane speed, swiped downward with his spear, tripping Shirou, then jabbing with the blunt end, hitting Shirou on the chest and propelling him to crash against the wall even as he deflected the rest of the Words.

Shirou groaned, coughing out a wad of blood, his vision blurring from the impact.

_'No. Not now. It can't end this way...'_

More magic flowed into the summoning circle that both combatants had yet to notice.

Lancer grinned. "Sorry kid, but this is the end of the line." He pulled back his spear, ready to thrust.

Once again, the world slowed down, and it was then that Shirou felt a tugging on his prana. He looked to the side, and hope flared in him when he saw the circle.

_'One chance then. I have to this now.'_

"Die!" Lancer stabbed.

In Shirou's mind, the golden web, already set completely on fire, blazed into an inferno. For an instant, all of his activated circuits flared and channeled prana throughout his body, as Shirou threw all the prana he could gather into the circle in an attempt to summon a servant.

"I WISH TO LIVE!"

For the two, the world flashed to white.


	2. Chapter 2

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?! **

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**I updated this fast because I wrote the story in spacebattles first. So the first chapter was up for a week or two.**

**Also, link to the thread: threads/nerve-damage-fate-stay-night-fanfic.234555/**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

"Die!" Lancer lunged at him.

"I WISH TO LIVE!"

And the world flashed white.

For Shirou however, he could never forget that fateful instant, where he channeled prana through all his circuits, all two thousand six hundred and twenty eight of them. Even though it was just for a second, it hurt, it **hurt**, like The Fire all over again. It seared his body and fried his muscles and sent agonizing pain throughout every nerve.

But he persevered, and with the spear meters away from him, he **pulled**with all his might at the source draining his prana. He poured all the mana he could possibly use into the action, and as a result he saw the circle flash, then disgorge four bright masses of prana, blue, red, white, and black, that immediately took humanoid shape, which then solidified into four-**FOUR**servants.

The moment they completely took form he shut down every circuit in his body save four, just enough to feel his connection with the four new servants in front of him. A moment longer and he would have been fried dead from the heat. Even then though, he still doubted his survival.

They were summoned lined up next to each other, facing the spearman, and they reacted magnificently. They drew their blades; an invisible blade of wind, a regal golden sword, a brilliant red blade, and a dark mass of jagged darkness, then charged, no _leapt_at the spearman, meeting his lunge with their own.

Their blades slammed into his spear, and with movements that mirrored each other they launched him straight out of his workshop, with enough force that Shirou heard him crash into the ground outside.

And yet, since the instant Lancer had leapt at him, it had only been a second, if that.

For a moment, silence, then the four finally seemed to notice each other.

The four looked the same save for their clothes, with the same face, the same hair, the same body, and they were beautiful, each and every single one of them. One was a woman in royal blue, her bearing regal and expression austere. In her hands she held naught but air, but Shirou had seen her attack as if she actually held a weapon, and perhaps she did, just an invisible one.

The one in pure white cloth was exactly like the first, only her hair, and armor, were different, the previous a ponytail instead of a regal bun, the latter steel plate that seemingly accentuated her feminity as much as protect her, and her gleaming sword incited awe from his eyes.

The dark one was frightening. Her bulky black armor was streaked with lines of bloody red, and the shard of darkness in her hands flickered and warped, never staying the same shape, forever confusing any enemy who might wish to figure out the true shape of the weapon inside.

The one in red wielding a curving red blade was...not dressed right. Shirou had stiffened the moment he saw her clothes, for it revealed the top of her breasts, the small of her back up to the start of her butt, and _the front is transparent OHGODICANSEEHERPANTIES._

Indeed he could, and Shirou almost fainted then and there at the sight. Faintly, he noted that aside from their clothes the blue and white one were physically the same. The one in red was exactly like them save for a different shade of green for her eyes and a longer ahoge, while the one in black simply had paler skin, yellow eyes, and no ahoge at all.

As it was, the four lookalikes were locked in a standstill, staring at each other in shock.

The one in blue was the first to speak. "What is the meaning of this? Who are you three?"

The black-armored warrior growled at her. "I can say the same to you, girl." The blade of darkness flickered faster, and the red veins on her armor seemed to thicken.

The red one however was rapidly looking back and forth between the ones in blue and black, confusion plain on her face. "Mou...they look just like me..."

It was one in white that noticed him, and she said as much to the others. "A magus, and I can feel a connection with him. Are you our summoner?"

His body was wracked with agonizing pain, and Shirou knew that he should be dead by now from the heat, yet he somehow wasn't. Though the pain was incredible, he had experience with pain, and managed to ignore it enough to move. His body literally smoking, he shakily stood up, and steaming blood ran down his lips as he smiled and opened his mouth to speak. "H-hello..."

The one in blue nodded. "You are. I can feel your prana flowing into me. I am Servant Saber. At your call I have answered."

The red one blinked. "What? But **I**am Saber! There can't be two Sabers!"

The white female tilted her head to the side. "Eh? I'm Saber too!" She looked at the black-armored servant. "Are you...?"

The dark female nodded. "Yes. Yes I am." She looked at Shirou. "You, summoner. What have you done?"

"What the hell! Four?! Who the fuck summons four?! What the hell are you?!" The spearman shouted from the entrance, eye visibly twitching at the sight.

The four Sabers looked at each other, then came to an unspoken agreement.

"We'll finish this after the enemy servant has been taken care of." Blue Saber confirmed, then the four turned and leaped outside, leaving a gust of displaced air in their wake and slamming into the spearman with the force of a cannonball.

Hearing the clash of steel on steel outside, Shirou wearily started walking out, his body still burning with heat. It was bearable now though, as it was only on the level as making a new magic circuit. After doing it thousands of times, he could, with effort, ignore that pain and still function more or less unaffected.

His body visibly steaming in the cool air, he walked out and beheld a completely one-sided battle.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lancer was pissed.

'_None of this makes any fucking sense!'_

He was pissed at the four swordswomen who had been summoned and were beating him senseless despite putting all his effort into defense.

He dodged the golden sword, then barely blocked the flickering blade of shadow. The next attack from the blue one came too fast, and he received a cut from the invisible sword for his troubles. The red one came out of nowhere and blindsided him, hitting him with a kick that had nothing less than A-class strength.

'_How can such a slip of a girl be so strong?!'_

Rolling across the ground, he stabilized and leaped away, narrowly avoiding a strike from the black-armored one.

He was pissed at the boy, who had summoned the four who were harrowing him.

He activated his noble phantasm. **"Gae-"**

They were too fast and too many, and three of them battered him away, interrupting the activation.

'_Goddamit, how do I get away?"_

But most of all, he was pissed at himself, for letting things get this bad. He should have killed the boy from the start, and none of this crap would have happened!

He took note of the red one, who was once again about to swing that sword of hers with her monstrous strength. The black one came at a close second, but the red one was definitely physically the strongest. And she looked the most harmless too, not even wearing any armor aside from her greaves.

He gritted his teeth at an idea. _'Here goes nothing.'_

He willingly went into her path, and timed his leap not before, but _at the same time_ as her swing.

Her curved sword slammed into him in a direct hit, though diverted enough by his spear to make most of the flat side hit instead. The impact was still enough to break half his ribs and rupture an organ or two. His leap, coupled by her incredible strength, launched him away in a barely-controlled flight much farther than he would have been able to just by himself. It was just far enough to let him escape.

He made full use of his agility then, running away without even bothering with a retort. There were times for banter, this wasn't one of them. Stopping just to make a cool remark just might get him killed. The white one was almost as fast as him after all.

'_You saw that?'_He called out to Bazett.

Silence from the link, but the intense feeling of nervousness and terror he felt from it was enough. The boy had summoned FOUR servants somehow, half the firepower of the entire damn war. There was no way to win this.

'_Any chance they might have been reduced in power due to the prana being split among them?'_Bazett finally replied.

Lancer shook his head. _'ONE of them would be a match for me. If they're reduced in power, then their original level must be monstrous.'_

Once more, silence.

Then, _'We're so screwed.'_

Cu Chullainn had no answer to that.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The red and white sabers turned back from the chase. The Lancer was faster, just a bit, than both of them, but his lead sealed the deal. They wouldn't catch him tonight.

Besides, they had more important matters to attend to.

They landed beside the blue and black swordswomen, visibly at ease, but mentally prepared to sprout into combat at a moment's notice. They were servants, and they were meant to fight and kill each other. They were never able to be fully at ease around their kind, even during alliances.

Shirou was leaning on the wall, breathing heavily, his skin a bright pink, as if he had recently been near a fire, and blood was leaking out of every orifice. He looked like a wreck, and he seemed seconds away from collapsing, but he kept himself awake to deal with the situation.

Specifically, the fact that he had summoned four servants.

"Are you sure you are our summoner?" The black saber asked him.

The one in blue narrowed her eyes. "There is always an easy way to know. Magus, where are your command seals, the symbol of a master?" At his confused look, she added, "They are usually on the hands, a set of glowing runes."

Shirou raised his hands, and was just as surprised as the four to see twelve seals on them, three on the back of each hand and another three on each forearm.

"So...four servants, you must be a really strong magus, huh?" The white saber stated.

The black saber frowned. "Either that or a fluke. How did you do it?"

Shirou took a deep breath. "I was going to die, but I saw the circle. It was my only chance, so I activated all my circuits and used as much prana as I could to summon a servant. I got you four."

The one in blue frowned. "That is all? It must have been an accident then." She looked at the other Sabers. "Now however, there comes the question. What are we to do with the rest of you? There can only be one winner of the war, and there are four of us."

There, it had been said. At the statement, the feeling in the air changed, crackling with barely-bound violence. The blue and black Sabers were tense, glaring at each other and wondering which would be the first one to strike, while the white one was looking between the two worriedly.

The red saber, who had been up to now strangely silent, spoke. "You know, I'm really wondering, why do you three look like me?"

Shirou blinked. The other three Sabers froze, then looked at the red one.

The black saber snorted. "Look like you? It is the other way around, whelp. You three look like _me._"

The white one pouted. "Mou, of course not. I'm the prettiest of you three."

Red saber seemed to take offense of that. "You? Ohoho, you jest, for I am the fairest of all!" She stated, one hand raised to her chin in a strange arrogant gesture.

The blue one twitched. "We are about to fight, and you argue about such meaningless things?"

The red and white one both turned towards her in eerie synchronization. "What are you calling meaningless?/Beauty isn't meaningless!" The two looked at each other after realizing what they had done, then they _giggled._

The blue Saber grinded her teeth so hard Shirou heard it.

Said sword incarnation swallowed nervously. "Uhh, maybe you're related?"

The four froze. The red saber put a hand to her chin in thought. "Perhaps you're my descendants?"

The black saber snorted. "Foolish. I recognize none of you-" Her eyes widened when she saw the sword in the white one's hands. "Caliburn?!"

The blue saber noticed it too, and her jaw dropped in shock. "Wh-where did you get that?!"

They crowded the white female, and she smiled nervously as they got close. "Isn't it obvious?" Though she didn't know them, they had recognized the blade, so her identity was going to be known anyway. "I'm Queen Arturia!"

The black saber frowned. "Impossible. **I**am King Arturia."

The blue saber licked her lips at the subtle differences at what they called themselves. "That cannot be, for King Arthur...is **I**." The three stared at each other, then looked at the red saber.

The women in red simply chuckled. "Oh no, I'm not you. **I**am Emperor Nero. Much better than King Arthur, don't you think?"

Silence, then they looked at Shirou.

The sword incarnation gulped. "I...have no idea?"

They were about to say more but then they sensed something. They all turned towards the street.

"A servant is coming. A truce, until we settle this matter?" The blue Saber asked. At their nods, they charged out.

Shirou blinked, then ran and followed them, just in time to see the male servant in red from before almost get ripped apart by the four before disappearing suddenly. He saw a human figure try to attack the black saber, witnessed his spell fail completely against the servant, then saw the black saber about to swing down on the magus.

"No."

His circuits burned once more, and despite how much it hurt, he channeled his prana and formed the combination. Twelve Words of Cut, six Words of Rush, four Words of Bind, a single Hunt. A glowing _spiked_chain made of blue Words materialized, attached to the ground, and he grasped it as it shot out at speeds faster than his eyes could follow, though he saw the end result: the black saber's swing was stopped, barely, the long chain winding and grasping around the blade of darkness enough times that the shifting mass could be gripped, although it took all his reinforced strength to keep her swing from connecting.

Even then, he felt the pavement crack and almost rip away from her strength.

His dark servant looked balefully at him. "Why, summoner?"

He scowled at her. "You don't just kill someone like that! That's wrong!" Then he recognized the figure on the ground. "T-Tohsaka?" What was the school idol doing here?

Rin Tohsaka smiled at him, as if she hadn't just almost been murdered by a sword of shadows. "Well hello there Emiya, it seems you've somehow found yourself with _four _servants...and _sabers_ too from the looks of them." There was something _wrong_with that smile of hers, as if something malicious and evil was lurking behind it.

Shirou shuddered.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Though Rin looked calm on the outside, her thoughts actually weren't.

Rin was angry.

No, _fuming_.

Wait, wrong, _**furious**_.

Scratch that, _**PISSED.**_

She had thought all the destruction was from Lancer's spear and Emiya was just really good at dodging, but no, apparently, Shirou, the school's resident fake janitor, was somekind of super mage.

There was no other explanation as she stared at the four glorious figures before her, all with the same features, all SABERS. He was somekind of super mage confident enough in his own abilities to take on a heroic spirit. Admittedly, he lost, but the destruction she had seen was enough to convince her that he had probably put up a good hard fight against Lancer.

She had thought he was innocent, and had wasted a valuable gem to save him, and it had ended up with him summoning four sabers, one of which would have been enough to take down her servant. He had _four_ of those monsters. The war was his now. There was absolutely no way for anyone to win against someone with four sabers.

As the sword of darkness swung down, she swore she was going to kill him in the next life.

"No."

She almost didn't hear it. She most definitely saw the chain of..._words?_that shot out at insane speeds and wrapped around the sword, its bladed protrusions helping it grasp the writhing shadows. There was something about the words that made them seem _more_than words. They held feeling in them, and from the chain she felt a combination of extreme sharpness and speed, a feeling of being caged, and...being chased?

The sword stopped a foot away from her face, and she looked up and saw a bloodied Emiya holding the chain. He looked horribly beaten, and blood was leaking out of his every orifice. Still, he had saved her.

She didn't know what kind of magic he was using though, but it was powerful, to have moved so fast and held back a servant's weapon like that. How had such a magus slipped under her nose all this time?

His dark servant looked balefully at him. "Why, summoner?" Yup. Confirmed. They were his.

He scowled at her, and the blood on his face made him look terrifyingly menacing. "You don't just kill someone like that! That's wrong!" Then he seemed to recognize her. "T-Tohsaka?"

She gave him her best smile. "Well hello there Emiya, it seems you've somehow found yourself with _four_servants...and _sabers_ too from the looks of them." She absolutely hated him right there, but it would not be wise to antagonize the one who held your life in his hands.

The blue saber looked at him. "You two know each other?"

He gulped. "Sh-she's the school idol. You're a magus?"

"Apparently, so are you." She added bitterly. She stood up, and she noted the way his servants tensed. Hmph. As if she could do anything to hurt him with four servants protecting him. "Well, aren't you going to welcome me into your home? That's usually what guys do after saving a girl..."

The servants looked at him, and as he dispelled the chains and nodded his affirmation, they went to his side, following his orders despite their obvious displeasure. Well, two of them at least. The red and white one didn't seem to care either way.

As they moved along inside, he spoke. "Sorry about the damage, Lancer attacked." He explained, the blood mostly gone save for some hardened streaks after he picked up a towel somewhere and rubbed his face with it. He limped when he moved, though he didn't seem to register the pain. Pain conditioning? What kind of training did mages of his level get, anyway?

They looked at the holes and grazes.

"Those don't look like marks from a spear." The red saber noted.

He rubbed the back of his head, and Rin noted that it was shaking rather hard. "Ahh, most of those were from me, actually."

'_What could cause those marks?'_She wondered. Out loud, "Here, let me fix that." A quick cut of her fingertip, and with each drop of blood she cleared out each section of the hallway until it was undamaged once more. The kitchen too, once they got there. It seemed to have been where he was attacked originally.

She looked at him. "There, good as new. Though a magus of your caliber probably could have done it all with a thought, right?" The expression on his face was of awe, though. Why? What was there to be amazed at?

"So that's what a proper magus can do..." He breathed in wonder.

She frowned. "What are you talking about?" It was as if he had never seen something like that before.

He blushed, embarrassed. "I've never met another magus before aside from dad and sensei. I guess I have much to learn if I can't do that yet."

Silence.

"What." Rin stared at him.

He rubbed the back of his head again. It seemed to be a nervous tick of his. "Ahh...I'm not really that good of a magus. I only know reinforcement, structural analysis, and what sensei taught me...great, I forgot the term again."

"**What the hell are you talking about?!"**Rin all but growled. This was impossible. She could not have been outdone by a third-rate magus, she just _couldn't._

He leaned away from her, shocked by her reaction. "W-what's wrong? Did I say something to offend you?"

Unnoticed by them, the four sabers were looking back and forth between the two of them as Rin grew more and more frustrated and confused.

But he was outright admitting that to her. "What about what you did back in the streets, the one with the chains?"

He brightened. "Oh, I remember now. _Arcani Dei Verbum._Magic of God's Words._"_He looked strangely at her. "Why? Can't you use it?"

Silence.

Rin could only gape in shock. "What...have your teachers been telling you? What I did to fix the house was basic. Reinforcement and structural analysis are also basic and useless for a mage, but what you did with those chains was infinitely more complex than any of those."

He blinked. "But sensei said any magus worth his salt knows Word-magic..."

Impossible. What she had seen wasn't something simple enough for that. Those words were something else. Not runes, nor thaumaturgical marks. They held _meaning_in a way that was obvious to even just a casual observer. That was a specialized craft of a line of magi, not something any mage can learn.

She grinded her teeth, and he seemed to slowly back away in fear. "**I**don't know it, and I'm pretty sure I have my bases covered. Whatever your teacher's been teaching you is wrong!"

He took offense at that. "Hey! Don't insult sensei! He helped me with everything even though he didn't have to! He told me about the basics, how to use Word-magic, and he told me about proper making of circuits! If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be the mage I am now, and I probably would have killed myself accidentally!"

There were so many things wrong with what he said, but one thing stuck out the most. "_Create_circuits?" She pointed out.

He nodded. "Yeah, magi create their own magic circuits right? How many do you have?"

'_You can't be serious.'_She thought. "I don't know, how many do you have?"

He blushed, then, almost shamefully, he said, "Two thousand six hundred and twenty eight. You probably have more though if you can't even count them anymore..."

What. That was impossible. The number of magi with more than a hundred circuits could be counted on one hand, and absolutely no one had more than two hundred. Who was he kidding here?!

She said as much to him.

The look of honest confusion on his face made her want to rip it off with her bare hands. "But...he said..." He muttered, then narrowed his eyes. "...that can't be right. I know his methods work." He held out his hand to her. "Here, analyze me. I'm telling the truth."

The black and blue sabers glared at her, and she understood: Try anything, and we murder you. She nodded, then held his hand and analyzed his body, already preparing the speech to berate him for being wrong.

...

...

…

Oh god.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shirou studied Rin as she held his hand.

At first she had looked delighted, as if she was about to be proven right, then she looked confused, then shocked, then she started paling until Shirou was worried about her health, then she just went stone cold emotionless.

She retracted her hand, placing both at her lap and staring at him with dead and empty eyes. "What is _wrong_with you?" She said in a voice so cold he winced.

He swallowed nervously. "W-what?"

She continued staring at him, and honestly, it was scaring him. "Your actual circuits are there, but they're dormant. You've never used them. You turned your nerves into makeshift circuits. They're low quality, barely a fourth the level of an actual one, but there's so many of them that they're the equivalent of hundreds of normal circuits. Average magi have twenty. **I**have only a hundred, and that's with my crest. In addition, many cannibalized nerves should make you a cripple, but you're not. In fact, converting nerves into magic circuits has a fifty percent fatality rate **if** tried with research and proper tools. You have done this literally thousands of times, I believe _without_research and proper tools...why aren't you **dead?**" She stated in one breath, all in the same dead monotone voice.

He gulped. There was something dark and heavy forming around Tohsaka, and it seemed to be focused solely on him. "I...I heal fast?"

And then she snapped.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was a good thing Nero was there. The red servant stepped in the moment Rin lunged for his throat, slipping her arm around her neck and stomach and pulling her back as Rin clawed at the air in fury, her mad, furious eyes staring into his very soul and promising murder.

Grinning, the servant pinned the magus to the ground and tightened her grip. "Whoa, she bucks like a lion!" She commented. Then Rin changed her attention to the servant and started trying to claw her eyes out. "Scratches like one too. Good thing I have experience choking the little furballs." She revealed as her grip tightened. Slowly, Rin's movement started faltering and slowing, and it was only when she was completely still did Nero unwind her arms from the unconscious girl.

Nero grinned at Shirou. "So, do I get a reward for saving you from a psychotic female magus?" She asked, posing and pouting cutely. Shirou pointedly tried not to look lower than her stomach, for there lies temptation. A hero's supposed to be above that, right?

Shirou was saved from answering by the blue Saber. "Now that the magus is unconscious, I believe it is time we settled this." She looked at the other two sabers, the ones who had claimed themselves Arturias to her Arthur. "What_are_ you two?"

The one in white bit her lip nervously. "Like I said, I am Queen Arturia, once and future Queen of Britain. You however called yourself a King like her-" she gestured to the one in black "-though you called yourself Arthur instead. There is a very obvious connection there. Perhaps...we are the same people? Possibilities? The grail _does_reach beyond just one world..." She shook her head, confused at the thought. "I don't know. We need to share facts."

The black one chuckled harshly. "Only Britain? I expanded beyond the island, and conquered all of Europe. I was satisfied then, and would not have gone any farther." Her voice turned sour at her next words. "But the Orientals thought otherwise, and stole my sheath with their cowardly tricks." She smiled bitterly.

Shirou gulped, but she shook her head at him. "I know of the land of the rising sun. I hold nothing towards your country, for none of the sons of Nippon went against me." She grinned. "They were too busy having a bloody civil war."

She turned back to the other sabers. "Not that losing my sheath made me any less capable. I still protected my kingdom from invaders, and not a one made it a mile past the borders. I died in bed, old age defeating what tens of thousands of enemies could not." She looked at the other two. "I revealed my gender eventually because it was too troublesome pretending. They continued to call me king however because it was all they had known me as for years. There. That is my story. What about you two?"

The blue one nodded. "I never showed my true gender save to my closest confidants, so I remained as King Arthur. I did not expand the kingdom, and there was peace for years, until..." She gritted her teeth and admitted the bitter memories. "...civil war, twice. Somewhere along the way I lost my sheath, and in the final battle against the last of the rebel knights did I receive a fatal wound." Then she and the black one looked at the one in white.

The white one gazed at them sadly. "My story had a much happier ending than both of you. I hid my gender from the start, but not for long. I found the loneliness of being unable to truly let down my guard around my knights and subjects for fear of revealing the secret too hard. So I decided not to." She smiled then, a happy smile at the thought of a fond memory. "I revealed the truth, and though some knights stepped down and many people protested, those that stayed were steadfast to the end. I didn't expand past Britain either. Controlling just the island was hard by itself, but in the end, after decades of work, all of Britain was united, and I ruled for years as its eternally youthful queen."

Her expression turned melancholic then. "But then there comes a time when life becomes too hard after so many years, especially when all your friends are dead and gone. I passed down Avalon to my son, Mordred, and aged away naturally. I left behind a peaceful but powerful kingdom, and a legacy of just rule and fairness. I have no regrets." She finished, savoring the tale.

The three looked at each other then, and shared a smile, an aura of strange camaraderie around them all, before they looked at Shirou.

The black one growled. "Well? Which one is familiar to you?"

Shirou licked his lips nervously and pointed at the blue one. "Hers. The King Arthur in the books kept to Britain and was never mentioned as a girl. Moreover, the two civil wars were there."

They gazed at each other again.

"Parallels then. Alternate selves." The one in white admitted as she looked pointedly at the blue Saber. "You're the original, or this world's Arturia at least." She turned to Shirou. "The female master is right, however" she started, gesturing at Rin's comatose body "magic circuits aren't created. You're born with them, and the number doesn't change. If what she found out about you is true, it seems that you've somehow managed to survive hoarding a multitude of converted nerves."

Nero pounded a fist into her open palm, a look of enlightenment on her face. "Oh! That must be what happened! If you have the equivalent of hundreds of circuits, then since you used all of them to summon us, the sheer amount of prana you used in the summoning was completely unexpected by the grail and you ended up dragging out multiples of one servant! That makes perfect sense!"

In a way it did. If nothing else, the sheer amount of heat he had been radiating when they had been summoned was at least explained. However...

The three parallels looked at the red female.

King Arthur glared at her. "That doesn't explain why _you_were included. I can understand these two, for they are my alternate selves. But why you? What connection can you possibly have to be summoned with us?"

Nero puffed out her chest and pointed her nose in the air. "Simple. I'm your ancestor!"

King Arturia grunted. "And once again, that's just implausible!" She blinked when Queen Arturia tapped her shoulder, blushing. "What?"

The white Saber smiled nervously. "Umm...I think she may be right. She's from an earlier time than us, and yet we all look almost exactly the same. She may have some basis for that thought..."

The four studied each other, and the black saber fumed at the undeniable proof. "...but...she..."

Nero chuckled, gesturing towards her body. "_Almost_ exactly. It seems you three haven't quite inherited one of my more important...hmm...assets..."

The three alternates paused, then glared at Nero for the blatant insult. The fact that it was true was just salt in the wound.

Discreetly, Shirou backed away from the potential conflict. Even he wasn't stupid enough to get between that.

The black saber snorted. "Bah. It would a waste of time to bother with you." She looked at her alternates. "You two however...you understand of course, that this changes nothing. The grail still only grants one wish, and I doubt we all have the same one."

The one in white beamed. "I've already said it. I have no regrets. I am content with the life I had. I have no wish for the grail."

Nero smiled sadly. "While my life didn't exactly end on a high note, an artist regrets nothing of her art, only hopes to create a better one. No wish, fortunately for you two."

The blue saber shook her head. "Unfortunately, I do." She stood up, and raised a gauntleted fist, a faint distortion that was only visible if you knew what to look for the only indication she had a weapon drawn. "Shall we decide who deserves the prize?"

The black saber rose herself, and in her hands, the shadows once more formed into a blade. "Bring it."

Shirou suddenly asked. "These markings are called command seals. Why?"

The white saber blinked. "They can be used to impose an absolute order. If specific, the servant can't refuse. If general, the servant receives a rank down in parameters if she resists. Why?"

Shirou then shifted his gaze to the black and blue sabers, his face stern. "No fighting." Two command seals started to glow.

The black saber growled and pointed her sword at him. "No! Don't you dare, summoner!"

He faced her glare unflinchingly. "There will be no killing in this house, and this applies to both of you. If you continue this, I will order you two to try your best not to win the war."

The two sabers scowled at him, their weapons poised to strike him instead, and the threat of violence filled the air.

Nero saved him from possible dismemberment once more, this time with her thoughts. "You know, normally the grail appears only when one servant is left standing, but normal grail wars only have seven servants. Don't you think it'll be wiser to wait until all the other servants are dead and see if the grail appears? It's not as if anything in the war can actually be a threat with four of us."

Silence, then the two sabers, blue and black, looked at each other.

"There is still only one wish." The blue one reminded them.

The black one smiled, the grin predatory. "Then the one who kills the most servants, wins the right to use the grail."

"And in the case of a tie?" The blue saber asked.

The black saber gestured with her sword. "Then a battle to determine who truly is the better saber."

Then they sat down, staring at each other fiercely, but no longer prone to sudden combat.

Then the white one spoke. "Mou, you know, we still haven't figured out what to call each other."

Nero chuckled. "Oh, that's simple! You're white saber, she's blue saber, and that one's black saber! Easy, isn't it?"

The named sabers glared at the red servant.

The white one crossed her arms. "Oh very well. Call me Lily then." She grinned at Shirou. "I am at your service master."

The black saber tapped the side of her head in thought, then said one word: "Alter."

The blue one however looked confused, apparently unable to figure out a good faux-name.

Lily put her hand on her shoulder. "It's fine. You can stay as Saber. You're this world's after all." She turned to Alter. "You don't mind right?" She took the nonchalant shrug as a yes.

The now confirmed Saber sighed in relief. "Thank you."

Alter looked at Shirou. "I wonder though. They say you have an abundance of prana, but while I can sense our connection, there is barely any prana flow between us."

Shirou blushed. "Uhh, my body really hurt using all of them when I summoned you. I only have a few active." He took a deep breath, and blinked. "Huh? Strange. The damage doesn't seem to be that bad. Okay then." He activated half a thousand circuits.

The four sabers all suddenly twitched, shock written all over their faces.

Nero moved her arms, smiling. "Incredible...this is a LOT of prana flowing through me."

Lily smiled widely. "I have a really powerful master..."

Alter looked impressed, and she nodded at him in what could almost be considered respect. She grinned. "War's in the bag."

Saber sighed. "Powerful indeed. How much of your power is this?"

He blinked. "About a fourth."

...

...

...

Lily looked at Rin. "Ahh, so that's why she's so angry. You've obtained something entire generations of magi strive for in one generation, all through ridiculous luck."

Shirou palmed his face, sighing tiredly. "It's true then? Was sensei just lying to me all this time?" Betrayal. It was a strange feeling.

Saber shook her head. "I think not. Even if what he told you about circuits are lies, that word-magic of yours...It is most certainly not sub-par. He gave you a lot of trust, teaching you that. He might possibly have considered you his successor, for that can be nothing else than the art of family of magi. If nothing else, the wrong information he gave you turned you into such a powerful magus. Give him the benefit of the doubt." He sounded suspiciously like Merlin. She had seen the old wizard do that often enough, give misinformation that turned out to be beneficial to the victim of his attention.

The sword incarnation breathed deeply. "I guess I'll ask him when I meet him again." He looked at the unconscious Rin. "...what are we going to do with her?"

Alter nodded. "Kill her of course. We cannot let a hostile master survive."

He shook his head. "And I already told you, no killing in this house." He sighed once more. "If you want, I can put her in the guest room and one or two of you can guard her."

His stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, and he gave another sigh as he remembered that he hadn't eaten anything since lunch. "Do any of you want to eat?" If he was going to eat, then the guests get to do so too. It was common courtesy.

Nero, Lily, and Saber looked delighted.

Alter however... "You'd have to try hard to satisfy me. During my reign, I had the greatest chefs of the realm serving in my kitchen."

The sudden gleam in Shirou's eyes sent a shiver running down her spine.

If there was one thing that his sensei drilled into him that he didn't regret, the order that a hero had to be able to cook like a god was it. "Oh really..."


	3. Chapter 3

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**[Flashback eight years ago]**

Shirou fidgeted as his teacher delicately cut off a piece of the steak and inserted the chunk into his mouth with a fork.

Silence, save for the sound of meat being chewed.

The elder magus swallowed, a raised eyebrow his only reaction as he looked once more at the food before him.

The old man continued eating, and Shirou grew progressively more nervous as the man got closer to finishing.

Once done, he pushed his plate away and looked at Shirou.

Inside the old man's mind, thoughts whirred and blazed, possibilities came before him, all a depending on his next actions.

'_Should I, or should I not. Do I dare force this young man to aim for godliness? Would he even believe? Will it even work?'_

The answer was quite simple really.

The old man internally smiled. _'Oh the fudge with it, I'm doing this for shits and giggles anyway. What's one lie along all the other things I told him?'_

Out loud, "Excellent."

Shirou beamed.

"But not good enough."

The smile fell, and the boy looked ready to cry. "Why?" He pleaded.

The aged magus 'harrumphed'. "Your dream is to be a hero is it not?"

Shirou blinked. What did that have anything to do with it?

The elder crossed his arms. "Tell me, whenever you read about adventurers cooking, how do they describe it?"

Shirou frowned. "Uhh..."

The old man suddenly lunged towards him, his face inches away from his own, and Shirou fell down on his butt at the sudden movement. "Like a feast boy! Whenever you read about heroes going out into the wilderness, they describe food they hunted, skinned, and cooked that very day as a feast! And that is in the wilderness, with subpar or lacking ingredients, burning twigs for fuel, and primitive tools! Do you understand? You, who desires to be a hero, must meet their standards!"

Shirou gaped, unbelieving at the insanity being shoved in his mouth. And yet, _it made sense._

The elder magus continued, noting the rising spark of belief and laughing with glee inside. "In this day and age, your tools are things the heroes of yore could only dream of, ingredients all over the world are readily accessible, and you think being on the level of a five-star chef is good enough? The shame!"

"To call yourself a hero of justice, you must go beyond the greatest chefs of this age. You must become as a god in the kitchen. Your food must be healthy, and yet delight the senses to their very peak. Your food must become unforgettable, unmatchable, so that all others will be as ash on their lips. Your food must give them pleasure matched only by that of miracles, no, your food itself must be a miracle!" The man shouted.

Shirou slumped, having recognizing his failings. How was he to meet those standards?

'_Oh yes. One more push.'_The old man put a hand on the boy's shoulder, and Shirou looked up into kind understanding eyes. "But there is still hope." He continued somberly. Shirou's eyes lit up. "You are still young, and you show potential. I will aid you, with my connections, I will send to you the best tools available in the world, and any ingredient you ask for I will provide."

Tears ran down Shirou's face as his teacher once again showed his great generosity. How could he ever repay this man?

The old man held a palm. "However, the rest is up to you. You must push yourself to the limit, never slacking in your training. Your food can be nothing less than gloriously perfect, and so, if the ones you feed are not completely floored by your food, you are doing something wrong. Anything that may improve the food, you must achieve, anything that they do not like, no anything that does not amaze them, must be changed so that it does, for nothing else will be enough. Do you understand?"

Shirou nodded, conviction in his eyes.

The teacher smiled. "Then prepare yourself, for the road to become a god of cuisine is long and hard..."

In his mind however, _'I can't believe he believed this bullshit.'_

**[Flashback end]**

Shirou sighed as he remembered the day he started on the road to surpassing all known limits of cooking.

Then realized after a few years that the man was bullshitting him. There were limits even to his suspension of disbelief. God of cooking? That was but a mad dream, one that made not an iota of sense of possibility.

He shook his head, chuckling at the thought of how he would have turned out if he hadn't realized that it was probably just a joke from the old man.

Not to say that he completely abandoned being a good chef. He had developed enough of a love and pride for cooking that his skill in the art could be considered excellent. If it was enough to satisfy the palates of royalty however was another matter...

'_I'm starting to regret accepting that challenge.'_He thought as he finished preparing the food. He looked around the kitchen, noting the extra servings he had made in reserve. It was lot. To the point that he would only have enough food for one more day before having to buy more, but something in his gut told him he would need more than normal proportions for this dinner.

Nervously wiping his hands on his somehow-spotless apron, he studied his food once more, but could not find anything he could do to improve it.

Another sigh. He hung the apron, and picked up a pair of plates. Idly, he noticed that his hands were no longer shaking, and despite the tiredness in his frame, there was strangely no more pain. It was as if his injuries had been healed. Strange, he knew he healed fast, but not that fast...

He shook his head, disregarding those thoughts and focusing on what was to come next.

Time to face the music.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He went in just in time to see Rin surrounded on all sides by the four sabers' blades, face pale and sweating.

Oh. Right. They hadn't moved her yet. She must have woken up recently.

She turned her head to him and whatever color was left drained out of her face, and a resigned expression remained.

Shirou sighed. It was best he nipped this in the bud. "No, I'm not going to kill you."

Rin started, surprised by his words. Fear was apparent on her face, even if she was trying to hide it. Maybe leaving her alone with people who wanted to kill her hadn't been such a great idea... "W-what?"

He repeated himself, and Rin seemed to relax. Just a little, though - her eyes still darted across at the Sabers and their expressions, which had only grown more annoyed on hearing Shirou's statement. Still, with the threat of immediate death apparently gone, she was beginning to regain her bearings.

He looked at the four servants, who still had their weapons drawn. "Stop it. Take away those blades. We're eating first. If there's a way I'm going to deal with this, it won't be on an empty stomach."

Grumbling to themselves, the Servants nonetheless complied. The weapons vanished as though they'd never been there.

"So", Shirou said, trying to move past the stifling atmosphere. "It's time to ea-"

"Master."

Shirou sighed inwardly, though he made sure to hide it. He turned to Saber - the original one, the one from his world.

"Is there something wrong?" He queried.

She raised an eyebrow at his nonchalance. "Do remember - she tried to kill you."

"I think she was only joking about it. Right, Tohsaka?" _'Please buy it.'_ He thought with hope.

Tohsaka blinked, startled, but reacted. "R-Right, I wasn't actually going to-"

"Weren't you trying to strangle him?" Nero apparently couldn't stop herself, a mischievous smile on her face. Well, the mad empress did crave entertainment, after all.

"W-Well, it was more of a gentle shake, you know, the kind you do with friends-" Rin tried to defend herself.

"You certainly have some interesting friends, Shirou, who'd look at you with such a hateful look in their eyes." Ah, Alter. Shirou was surprised at how unsurprised he was at her interference.

Somehow, he felt he was learning something very important.

"I-It was just a trick of the light-" Rin answered, but she sounded like she believed it less than the Sabers themselves.

"And the mad clawing and spitting fury?" Apparently, even Lily couldn't resist.

Shirou sighed at the look of mischief in her eyes. Ah, betrayal. It was becoming such a trusted friend, no matter how oxymoronic that sounded.

Rin was a smart girl. This meant she knew when to shut up, and pass the buck to someone more qualified.

"S-Shirou can explain!"

An absolute genius. Really.

Shirou just sighed, and turned to the servants. "You're not killing her." He deadpanned.

Alter glared at him. "Summoner, I must protest thi-"

Shirou looked at her in the eye. "First off, all of you, don't call me master or summoner. Shirou. Call me Shirou. All of you. Second, there will be no killing in his house. Third, even if we weren't here, I still won't let you kill her."

Alter glared at him. "And why no-"

"I have a debt towards her." Shirou quickly answered.

Well, that changed things.

The four sabers looked at each other, then back at him. "What kind of debt?" Nero asked.

Shirou calmly placed the plates on the table, then turned his face towards them. Tired eyes stared into theirs. "I am tired, sore, beaten, and hungry. Please, if you wouldn't mind, can we have this discussion _after_we eat so that I can cross off being hungry off that list?"

The servants gave Rin a withering glare, before settling into position across the table. Rin herself moved to sit on one end after Shirou gestured for her to join them. It was a surreal experience. She had fully expected to be killed after waking up, or perhaps never waking up at all in the first place, but suddenly it had gone to her being invited for dinner.

The atmosphere was understandably tense however as they settled into place and started to eat.

The four sabers blurred into motion and started to eat at a fast pace that left her and Shirou blinking in surprise. Even then, with their armor removed for comfort and proper finger movement, the servants frequently glanced at Rin, as if daring her to try attack again. Their first bites gave them pause however, as Shirou's excellent cooking made itself known to their taste buds.

"This is very good, Shirou." He blinked at Saber's words. The woman was smiling at him, her earlier displeasure seemingly having vanished. She was holding her chopsticks in her hand, and it was clear that she'd just had her first bite.

Shirou wondered at her demeanor. She'd gone from irritated to pleased and content with a single bite of food. How remarkable. How strange.

...How simple. Is this really the King of Britain?

Lily seemed the same, though Nero was, surprisingly enough, more contained. She too enjoyed his food, though, and said as much.

Shirou smiled inwardly at a job well done, even as he found himself moving back into the kitchen to get more of the extra helpings every few mouthfuls as the servants proceeded to stretch the boundaries of what such small frames should be capable of eating. _'The food isn't going to last after lunch at this rate...'_He surmised. He was going to have to rush back home with the groceries tomorrow after school if their appetites were always this large.

Were all servants like this?

Suddenly remembering the challenge he'd put forth to Alter, he grew a little nervous. While he didn't believe in being a God of Cooking anymore, he still took pride in his culinary skills.

Alter took a large piece of meat from her plate and plopped it in her mouth, chewing slowly. She seemed to draw it out, taste every corner of it.

Despite himself, Shirou found he couldn't stay quiet.

"So, what do you think Alter?" He said, trying to stay nonchalant. And failing, but the effort was (unfortunately) there. "Does my cooking pass your standards?"

He couldn't stop the challenging smirk that formed on his mouth, though.

Alter swallowed, an odd expression on her face, before she turned to him, face cold.

Shirou gulped.

"It was ... adequate."

"Oh, I see. Well, thank you for your compliment, Alter." Shirou mentally gave himself a pat on the back at that, along with streamers and blowhorns.

Not for the first time, Shirou was glad people couldn't read minds.

...

...why was Rin laughing?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shirou let out a deep breath as he drunk a glass of water to wash down the food he had eaten.

He looked at the sabers, who were once again still as statues as they stared at a nervously fidgeting Rin.

He sighed. "Stop it. My debt to her is that she saved my life. You aren't going to harm a hair on her head if I have anything to say about it."

The four blinked.

Lily frowned. "How?"

Shirou smiled tiredly. "The time I summoned you was the second time I encountered that blue spearman. He stabbed me in the heart at the end of the first, and I should have died." His gaze shifted to Rin. "I was bleeding out when I heard voices, but then I blacked out. I woke up with my chest healed, and this-" he took something from his pocket and held out a jeweled necklace. "-lying on the ground. It was you, wasn't it? I barely recognized your voice, but I know it's you. This is yours, right?" At her expression, he knew he was correct.

Shirou approached her and grabbed her hand, putting the jewel in her hands, closing it with his own. Rin blushed at the contact, but he didn't seem to notice as he stepped back and bent forward, his body parallel to the ground. "Thank you. I don't know how you did it, but you saved my life. I will repay that back in full."

Rin blushed harder. "I-It was nothing! It was just my job as the landowner okay!" Not really. But she couldn't just say she did it for sentimental reasons.

He straightened. "You still saved my life. If I have anything to say about it, they will not hurt you." He looked at the servants. "Even if I have to use a command seal for it." The seals pulsed for a second. He was entirely willing to put his words into action.

Lily frowned. "Ma-Shirou," She corrected herself, "she still has a servant."

The redhead sighed. "I know that. However, I've been wondering. Do you even technically need to kill the master?"

Nero shook her head. "No. It's just that killing the master is easier to do, and without a master, the servant fades away."

Shirou nodded. "There you have it. You will not hurt Rin."

Saber frowned. "What about her servant then?"

Shirou answered her readily. "You'll fight him when he's back to full power in a fair fight. If you win, then that's one servant gone and Rin doesn't have to get hurt. If you lose" she scowled at the prospect of her defeat "then he fights the next after he recovers. We'll go from there."

Rin blinked. "Wait. You're just going to let my servant heal up so that he can have a fair fight with your servants?" And one-on-one too. There was actually a chance of winning there.

Shirou nodded. "Yes. The war is supposed to be between servants in the first place right? Then let's keep it that way."

Saber furrowed her brow in thought. "That...actually I'm fine with that." She was a Saber and a knight after all. Honored combat between two individuals _was_her specialty. The other Sabers showed their affirmation, and she glanced at Rin. "But how do we make sure she keeps her end of the deal and doesn't attack us at an opportune time?"

Rin scowled at the thought of her breaking an oath. "Well, I can always stay here myself. With your four Servants, mine won't dare attack since he won't have a place to hide and you four will all attack him all at once. Does that sound good?"

Shirou flushed. "What? But you're a girl! You can't stay at a boy's house, that's improper!"

Rin grinned. "Well, do you have a better idea?"

Shirou honestly did not, and he slumped in defeat. "You'll have to make an excuse for that." He muttered.

The female magus shrugged. "I'll just say that my house is getting renovated and I'm staying here until the renovations are done." And it wasn't even a complete lie. Her house _did _have a giant hole in it, though she hadn't contracted any workers yet.

Shirou sighed. "All right. You win. Though..." he looked up at her, and his eyes were steel. "What's your wish?"

Rin took a step back at the sudden hostility. "W-What?"

Shirou crossed his arms. "I asked what you wish is. The last time the grail war occurred, a great fire happened and killed hundreds. I want to make sure your wish won't cause that."

Rin frowned. "It's Akasha. I want to see the Root of the World, nothing like that kind of destruction." She remembered that fire. It had been visible even far away in her house, a great conflagration that roared and reached to the heavens. Wait...her eyes widened in shock. "Y-you're a survivor of the fire?"

Shirou nodded. "It was a miracle that I did. I honestly thought I was going to die myself." He let out a breath. "Your wish is fine though. Even if your servant loses, if I win, I'll give you mine."

Silence.

Rin's blush reappeared. And she, along with the other Sabers, stared at him in surprise. "What?!"

Shirou nodded. "I have only one wish, and using the grail for it would take away its meaning. If I win, I'll let you use my wish." He raised an eyebrow at the Sabers' reaction. "What? It's not as if I'm aiming to lose. I'm just not going to bother with the prize." That calmed them down.

Nero shook her head, smiling. "We've got a very interesting master, don't you think girls?"

Lily tilted her head to the side. "I'm wondering though, what wish could you possibly have that's like that?"

Shirou chuckled. "Sorry, but that's personal." That, and it was embarrassing when you think about it, not that it wasn't a noble cause.

Rin herself just collapsed into a chair. "'Give you my wish' he says, like it's nothing to be excited about. God, you're a confusing person." She shook her head. "Still. This is most definitely a win for me."

Shirou shrugged. "So, is that all there is to being a master, or are there some procedures we have to follow?"

Rin sighed. "Only one. We need to get you signed up by the war's coordinator." She scowled. "Stupid fake priest." She whispered, then turned back to Shirou. "Might as well get this over with. The guy's usually awake at night anyway. Would you mind going now?"

Shirou glanced at the Sabers, and the four nodded. He faced Rin. "If they're fine with it then let's go."

Rin frowned. "Aren't you going to turn to astral form? You're rather noticeable."

Shirou blinked. "Astral form?"

The female magus sighed. "Servants are spirits when you get down to it. They can turn incorporeal to save energy and be invisible. It's what they do when they want to guard their masters when in public areas."

The four Sabers looked at each other and shared a look. They turned back to Rin. "We can't."

Another sigh. "God, even your servants are weird." She ignored their glares and walked out.

With that, six-person group went out into the streets, Rin at the lead.

They were barely walking for a minute however, when a sudden feeling of **danger**came down upon them all.

Shirou turned around to face the direction of the threat, and found only a white-haired little girl. "What?" She was the one he had seen for a second a few days ago.

He remembered her words: _'Summon your servant soon onii-chan, or else you're going to die.'_

The throbbing of his command seals only confirmed his suspicions. "A master."

Ilyasviel von Einzbern frowned at him. "It was really hard finding you onii-chan. I couldn't sense you from wherever you are, but now that you're outside..." She smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Berserker, kill them all."

And hell came upon them.

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**Corrected this. I wrote the first version of the chapter hungry and four hours past my bedtime. If you're imagining a starving withered figure typing away at a computer, then you're not too far from the truth. That said, I'm not just going to delete all those words I wrote, so it'll just be an omake. Rest assured the next chapter will be longer and more serious. Once again, sorry about the insanity I wrote. I'll try not to do it again, and if I do, I'll most definitely correct/delete it once I realize what kind of abomination I had written.**

**Anyway, certain things to say: First off, whoever it is that made the tvtropes rec, thanks dude. I really appreciate it. It makes me feel all bubbly inside. Another, for those who don't know it, Shirou is not going to be curbstomping the war. Why? Because despite having four full-powered sabers, there's going to be 28 servants in this war. Read the forum if you want to figure out why, I'm too lazy right now and it'll get explained eventually by the story (google search 'spacebattles nerve damage' choose the 'fate stay/night fic', not the Sabers and Summonings versions).**

**Omake: Challenge Achieved. Confirmed A-rank Noble Phantasm: Divine Cuisine**

Shirou sighed as he remembered the day he started on the road to surpassing all known limits of cooking.

Honestly, now that he thought about it, he couldn't believe he fell for that crap. But it had already started, and he could no more abandon that unfathomable goal than his dream of being a hero.

He looked at the food he had made as he put the last on the serving plate. It looked so plain to him. He had been incapable of improving since two years ago. He could no longer find any faults, but he couldn't find anything to improve either.

Unknowingly to him, while to Shirou his food seemed to be just barely meeting expectations, to the ones who had seen him at work and tasted his true cooking (Taiga was not deserving of it, for she never truly tasted and appreciated the food in her mouth. She was more of a quantity over quality person, and what he needed was someone insightful enough about food to pick out anything that might need improving. He had Sakura for that.), his food was unlike anything she had ever tasted, and probably would not be matched by anything else in the world.

And the way he cooked...the kitchen seemed to bend to his will as he cooked, everything moving at just the right place at just the right time, a whirlwind of action that left nothing but glorious food and a spotless kitchen. And it was all so silent...

But Shirou did not know that, he only knew that he was about to be tested by the palates of kings, and that he had become incapable of improving since two years ago. It could not be Sakura, his taster's, fault. Nor could it be his teacher's, for the man even now maintained his subscription into the organization that provided his ingredients and kept his tools up to date. No, it could only be his fault. He must have been slacking. Well, after this humiliation he would work twice, no three times, as hard! He **would**become the greatest chef in history!

Nervously wiping his clean hands on his somehow-spotless apron, he studied his food once more, but could not find anything he could do to improve it.

Another sigh. He hung the apron, and picked up the plates.

Time to face the music.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The four servants stared at each other as they waited for Shirou to finish cooking.

He had closed the door to the kitchen, and had done something to it that made it nigh-impregnable. They weren't getting in unless they were willing to break down the walls. They were just so curious, because the kitchen was so horribly silent.

Thirty minutes he said. He had ten seconds left.

The door opened, and a blur suddenly ran out. It moved around the table at an incredible speed, its hands moving quickly to rapidly place and arrange plates. Done, it halted at one end of the table, standing tall but slightly bowed, eyes closed and arm positioned at his chest in a flourish. "Dinner." Shirou Emiya proclaimed, his face cold and expressionless, like machine crafted in human flesh.

The four stared at him. While the speed had been incredible, it was his control that was truly amazing. He had placed a dozen plates of food and arranged theirs in the proper style as demanded by etiquette in under a second.

He also seemed fundamentally different right now than before in an incredibly disturbing way, so they turned to the food.

They gasped.

It...they...there was no description to it. The Food (you could literally feel the capitals) could not be anything else than perfect and absolute. It was food, brought to its endpoint of development. It was to high-class food of today what said high-class food was to eating raw bugs and leaves. They knew it simply from seeing it.

Hell, just the sight seemed to inflame their ravenous hunger and yet soothe it at the same time. The smell, oh the smell, their bodies warmed up upon scenting it, a pleasurable warmth that made them giddy and urged them to dive in and drown in The Food.

It also woke up Rin, who no one had bothered to move for fear of not being present when the food comes out.

The female magus blearily sat up, her head pounding and her memories blurred. Her drowsiness however disappeared the moment her nose took in The Food's scent a second time.

Her gaze shifted to it immediately, and she all but drooled. Actually, she did, but only a little bit (keep deluding yourself, Rin).

Then she noticed the rest of the occupants, and her face paled as her situation came down upon her.

She was going to die! Heck, Shirou was approaching her with a seriously psychotic look on his face! That face was just too expressionless to be anything but cold-blooded killing intent!

He placed his hands on her shoulders, and she suddenly found herself sitting on one end of the table, a plate and utensils in front of her, ready to be used.

She and the four servants blinked. They hadn't even seen Shirou move. She just seemed to have teleported.

Shirou himself was on the other end once more, his expression cold. "It seems we have another diner tonight."

Rin frowned. "Wait, you aren't going to kill me?"

An eyebrow rose up, moving like a completely separate being from the rest of his face. Oh god, how much more disturbing could he get? "It is dinnertime. For the duration of that time, you have no history, no self, other than as people I am about to feed. We will deal with matters outside of cooking and eating later." He gave them a look over. "Also, would you three alternates mind taking off that armor? It's terribly rude to wear that on the table.

It was stated with an arctic monotone that brooked no arguments, and the four sabers could not even think of protesting. On both accounts. The three Arturias' armors disappeared, leaving matching blue, black, and white dresses, and none of the four servants gave Rin a look.

Rin however...she stared at The Food. _'Well, it seems he's a good cook too. Heh, I could do worse for a last supper.'_

"Well, what are you waiting for? You may start." The emotionless voice prompted the women to move.

The Sabers moved with practiced and rapid efficiency, piling their plates high with as much of The Food as they could manage. Rin, after staring for a few seconds, stared for several more when she saw a plate disappear the moment the last morsel was taken and then replaced immediately with an untouched copy of it. She looked up just in time to see Shirou blur back out from the kitchen to stand at the table as a silent sentinel.

'_Holy crap. Fast. Well, at least I won't run out.'_She started gathering her portion of The Food, piling it as high as she believed she could eat. It was no use worrying about one's weight if one was going to die after all.

Then, they all took their first bite.

They all but fainted at the taste.

The five women shuddered, their taste buds aflame with delight and pleasure that somehow spread to their entire body, resulting in an overly pleasant feeling that left them light-headed and barely-coherent.

For that moment, they knew nothing, they had no history and no thoughts other than that they had been graced to be fed The Food and that they had to eat **more.**

It was slow-going. Each bite caused the same gloriously wonderful feeling the first had done, and it never lessened. Even though each plate contained a different fare, and therefore different taste, they all resulted in the same pleasure-burn that covered their entire body. They could not help but slowly devour and bask in the bliss of each mouthful.

This was not food be eaten in a rush. This was The Food, and they would not insult its existence by not savoring each bite.

They didn't know how long it took them to finish, but by the time they did, their minds were blank, their stomachs were delightfully (and somehow not painfully despite the amount they had eaten) full, and they would have called Shirou a god of cooking if they could just _speak._

And then he brought in The Dessert. It was small, diameter barely that of an open hand, but they knew it didn't need to be big. It was The Dessert, and for something like that, size was no obstacle.

They stared for a while at The Dessert, their minds incapable of comprehending that such a thing could exist. It was too much. The Food was already beyond their ken. How incredible must The Dessert be then?

But their stomachs beckoned, and Shirou, upon seeing the longing in their eyes, moved, taking out all of the used plates and placing new dessert plates in front of each one of them. Then with practiced ease, he cut The Dessert into five equal pieces and places it on each plate.

With shaking hands, they each cut off a piece, and almost fearfully, took a bite.

They collapsed, their bodies overwhelmed by The Dessert. It was a foodgasm, in the very literal sense. A single bite had caused their bodies to burst in pleasure beyond even what The Food could muster, and orgasm was the only possible result.

And all from one bite.

They took another. They had another foodgasm.

Oh yes, the feeling did not lessen at all.

Devouring The Dessert was going be a long and ardorous task indeed, and the five females were all too happy to undertake it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Ilyasviel von Einzbern frowned at him. "It was really hard finding you onii-chan. I couldn't sense you from wherever you are, but now that you're outside..." She smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Berserker, kill them all."

And hell came upon them.

It charged at them like a stampeding herd, its speed to the point that it was just a blur to Shirou's eyes, a gigantic mass of roiling death and doom approaching at bullet speeds.

The four sabers ran forward and met the charge with their own.

A shockwave that almost made him fall rang out as the two forces met, scattering whatever debris that littered the streets and shattering the very cement.

For a moment the five were still, and Shirou and Rin got a good look at their adversary.

It was gigantic. It was in the shape of a man, but incredibly muscled and standing at least ten feet tall, with iron gray skin and differently-colored eyes: one red, one yellow. It screamed and bellowed at them like a mad beast, the gigantic golden lion pelt covering its frame only enhancing its feral appearance. Around its neck dangled a necklace with three canine heads attached to it, the eye-slits burning balefully as they jangled with each movement.

In its hand it held a giant butcher's weapon, a crude and primitive weapon fashioned out of dark green rock into somekind of axe-sword that it swung around like a toy as it tried to hit each one of the four sabers, its arm blurring at the speed of its movements. Oh, and did he mention that the thing _was on fire?!_

Black fire covered the stone weapon, and each blow that missed and connected instead with the ground ended up in a miniature explosion that created a small crater in the pavement. The four Sabers avoided direct hits from that weapon. If they were to fail at blocking or dodging, one blow could very well end their life.

Rin gulped. "W-what the hell have the Einzberns summoned?" it was a monstrous beast of a servant, one that was sure to overwhelm all competition if faced head on one-on-one.

But this was not a one-on-one battle. There were four of the Sabers and only one of Berserker, and each one of them was at full power, no, above normal parameters, because of Emiya's surplus of prana. This would not be the easy win the Einzbern master hoped for.

Shirou scowled, furious at the feeling of helplessness that had come over him at seeing such an enemy. He knew for a fact he could not interfere. This was a battle completely beyond him. Trying to help directly would only be detrimental to the four servants.

So indirect methods then.

Breathing deeply, he activated more of his nerve-made circuits until he had a thousand active. They were obviously not at full output, but they were ready to do so at a moment's notice.

If there was anything the sabers were lacking in this battle, he would make sure prana was not one of them.

"Win..." Shirou whispered under his breath as he continued watching the incredible fight happening before his very eyes.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Berserker gave another roar, and the next swing almost took off Saber's head had she not ducked.

"Strong." She muttered, then leapt away, barely avoiding the sudden return swing. "And fast, too. What kind of hero are you?" He was faster than Lily, and stronger than even Nero, to the point that if one of them had faced him head on, she would have been killed in moments from the sheer strength and speed of the monstrous servant. It was a good thing there were four of them then, and they had settled into a switching pattern where two were always engaging him, trying to figure out how he moved before dealing the killing blow.

The next attack from the mad servant was intercepted by Nero, who had stepped forward and met Berserker's one-handed swing with her own, two-handed one.

Stone weapon and curved blade met, and the air rippled with the impact of two great forces slamming together. Nero held her ground, remaining unfazed despite the explosion of black fire that occurred on her blade inches away from her face, though the ground she stood on buckled and shattered.

Saber stepped forward and slashed at Berserker's bare thigh. Prana burst activated, and her weapon chopped into the metallic flesh with three times her actual strength. The blade, with difficulty, sunk into the flesh. The instant Berserker shifted his attention to her, she used prana burst once more, and her legs propelled her away from the retaliatory slash.

Nero backed away, joining Saber as Alter and Lily diverted Berserker's attention. The giant servant didn't seem to be affected by what would normally be considered a crippling wound, attacking and moving just as fast and powerfully as before. Lily used her own incredible agility to dodge his blows, while Alter seemed content to block, both testing the capabilities and movements of the mad servant.

Nero glanced at Saber's invisible weapon. "Strange, that invisible sword of yours couldn't cut him the last few times. What changed now?"

Saber raised an eyebrow. "Prana burst. A skill I and my alternates share. We use our prana like a controlled bomb to boost our body." She hefted the sword. "It seems our enemy requires at least A-rank strength to get through his skin."

Nero frowned. "So that's the weird thing you three were doing back then. Nice skill. I think I'm going to learn that..." she muttered.

Saber gave her a strange look. "Learn? What are you speaking of?" One couldn't just learn prana burst. Hell, one didn't have time to learn anything new in a grail war!

Nero chuckled. "Oh, it'll be a surprise..." She answered, studying Lily and Alter's movements.

Alter had apparently decided to brave Berserker's full attention for a while, and was resolutely trading sword blows with the mad servant. Liberally using prana burst to, with effort, block every blow sent against her.

All of a sudden, Lily appeared behind Berserker, leaping upwards and slicing into his neck. Her eyes widened when her blow failed to pierce the lion pelt. Immediately, she jumped away, and Berserker's backhand missed her by a foot.

The two moved to retreat, and Nero and Saber moved forward to switch, Nero humming and smiling as more of the mechanics of the skill revealed itself to her.

Lily landed daintily on her feet a safe distance away and she glanced at Alter, who had simply backed away. "You saw that?"

Alter nodded. "Yes. I most definitely did. There are few legendary lions I know of, and only one would have a hide strong enough to resist Caliburn's edge." Her eyes narrowed. "We face a demigod, Greece's greatest hero itself."

Lily frowned. "His skin's really tough. Too tough. Noble phantasm?"

Alter snorted. "What else can it be?"

Lily looked back at the now identified Hercules. "We need to end this. Are you ready?"

Alter's reply was to run forward, and Lily followed not far behind. Saber and Nero disengaged, backing away, and the four stopped their opposing movements so that they stood in a line, facing the mad servant, who, despite taking numerous wounds, seemed incapable of getting weaker.

Lily met the others' eyes. "Synchronize and fight well, and we'll finish this without taking a wound." She said, settling into a stance.

Saber nodded, and silently, she settled into the proper movement.

Alter rolled her eyes. "Get on with it." Despite her words, her movements mirrored her alternates'.

Nero gave them one look, and seamlessly copied them, making the three blink in surprise.

Berserker charged.

Once again, they met it with their own.

At the end however, Nero and Lily sped to the side, leaving Alter and Saber to take the blows. They liberally used prana burst to weather the storm of blows, and to the sides, Nero and Lily slashed at Berserker's legs.

Caliburn and Aestus Estus sliced into demigod flesh, and their blades chopped a third of the way into Berserker's knee.

The demigod didn't seem to be affected, and his arms swung down to his sides to crush the two who had wounded him so.

But they had already leapt away, and Saber and Alter stepped forward and sliced into his stomach. Once more, demigod flesh parted, yet what would have been a fatal blow was ignored, and Nero and Lily jumped forward and blocked his retaliatory blows as the other two pulled their swords out of his gut.

Blood was spilling everywhere from his frame now, and yet he moved with the same speed and strength as he had at the start, a particularly strong swing forcing all of them leap back lest they be blown away.

Nero chuckled. "This is glorious!" She charged forward, breaking formation and pattern, and met the charging Berserker's attack with her own two-handed swing.

The three alternates gaped as they sensed and saw _prana burst_activate, and for a moment, Nero's own monstrous A-class strength became three times as strong as it normally was.

Their weapons met, yet for that exchange, it was Berserker's weapon that was repelled, and the mad servant tipped backwards, unbalanced, defenses open, _vulnerable._

Pavement cracked as the three alternates used prana burst. Lily and Nero swung at his limbs, unbalancing him even more while Saber slammed into his chest, Invisible Air sinking into and through his heart to emerge out his back.

The light faded from Berserker's eyes, and the mad servant fell completely backwards, shattering the pavement with his weight.

Saber pulled out her blade, and the three Arturias stared at Nero. "How?"

A grin was their only answer. "My only skill is Imperial Privilege. But with EX rank, what else does one need?"

More staring, as the knowledge registered in their mind as to what Imperial Privilege could do.

Saber sighed. "Later. I'll deal with this later." She started walking towards Ilya. "Your servant has been defeated, magus. Will you continue to hinder us?"

The white-haired little girl laughed at her, and Saber froze as the aura of madness and danger returned. "You've already figured out his name, haven't you? But you don't know his noble phantasm! My Herakles has twelve lives! You stand no chance!"

Saber raised her sword and slashed with a half-spin, and she scarcely managed to block the axe-sword as it swung down on its owner's killer. "Damnation!" Fully healed. Berserker was fully healed, with nary a scratch on his once pitted frame.

Alter grunted. "Twelve lives huh?" She looked at Ilya, and the homunculus stepped backwards in fear as the black servant focused on her. Alter grinned visciously. "All his strength would be useless without a master though." She leaped forwards. "Die, magus!"

Away from the combat, Shirou gaped in shock, and a command seal started to glow. "No!"

He needn't have.

Berserker suddenly grabbed the three-skulled dog necklace around his neck, ripped it off, and threw it at bullet speeds in Alter's direction.

The skulls crashed meters in front of Ilya, exploding into a gigantic black conflagration that had Alter backpedaling to avoid.

It was a wise move.

Flaming ebony claws reached out, almost ripping off her face, and from out of the fires marched out a gigantic black wolf, eight feet tall, three-headed and monstrous. Three sets of balefully burning eyes glared at Alter, and with a howl that shook the ground, Cerberus, Hound of the Underworld, charged at the Tyrant of Knights.

Alter grunted as the hound slammed into her blade, then leaped away as the other two heads reached in to bite her face off. "Tsk. It seems your servant has a pet." Cerberus took a deep breath, and Alter's eyes widened in shock when the hound breathed out a cone of black flame from each mouth. She rolled to the side, though the fire caught on to the edges of her dress. "Annoying!"

Hercules swung his sword at the other three, while at the same ripping off the pelt too. He threw it in their midst, and the three sabers leapt away, expecting another explosion.

It didn't explode. The pelt merely slammed into the ground, then started to convulse and shudder, the skin writing as something inside grew at a rapid pace. In seconds, the pelt had risen to all fours, just a bit larger than Cerberus, its golden hide glimmering in the night sky, its yellow eyes staring into theirs with a predatory gleam.

The Nemean Lion pawed the ground, then pounced on the Sabers. Behind it, Hercules, now without the pelt protecting his frame nor the hellfire enhancing his blows, rushed at them, no less fast or strong than before.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rin stared. "Oh what the hell! So not only does he have to die twelve times, he has beasts, too!" she looked at Shirou. "I saw what you almost did there. You shouldn't stop them. They need everything they can muster if they want to beat Hercules."

Shirou shook his head. "No. I'm not going to stand back and let them hurt a little girl. If we're doing this, we're going this right." He breathed deeply. The sabers had been steadily taking from his reserves, but much less than he expected of them. None of them had yet to reveal their...noble phantasms was it? Yes, that was what it was called. They hadn't used any of theirs, and Berserker had already used two of his. Well, three, if you count getting resurrected.

In his mind, Word-blades formed and prepared themselves. "If you won't use my prana, then I will..." he muttered. He needed to help, and if they wouldn't even use his energy, then he wouldn't let it go to waste and take to the field himself.

Thankfully for Shirou, Alter chose that moment to get fed up with Cerberus.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The hellhound was nigh-impossible to melee with. Though it was slightly slower than even her, who was, grudgingly, the one with the lowest agility in the four, it could attack five times in the same instant with its claws and heads, and it seemed to be knowledgeable enough about battling heroes to make sure her blade only hit its fangs and claws.

She leapt away, prana burst enhancing her jump. She glared at the beast. "My turn. Meet _my_friend, mongrel." The darkness that formed her sword flickered and grew, until a gigantic mass of darkness was roiling before her. **"Nek'il Hi'tiyad'ril! Come forth!"**

The unholy syllables that sprang forth from her mouth made Shirou's ears bleed, and even the other Sabers and Hercules paused as the darkness grew to a size slightly bigger than Berserker himself.

It took shape, a vaguely humanoid figure, with overly long arms that almost reached the ground that ended in half a dozen long scything claws. Its head was like an amalgamation between a lizard's and a shark's, and from its head, four pairs of crimson eyes glared out, like drops of blood in a lake of darkness.

It faced Cerberus, and the hound growled at the shadowy creature.

Alter merely grinned, turning around to face Berserker. "Nek'il, kill the pup, then aid me in combat against the demigod."

The shadow-beast bowed its head in her direction. **"Your will be done."**Its voice was a murky, barely-understandable growl that was strangely low in volume yet made Shirou's head ache. It faced Cerberus. **"If the madman is still standing after I finish off its pet, that is..."**It muttered in amusement.

The hound growled and breathed a gout of fire at it. The blaze seemed to enveloped its frame, _seemed_, for it flickered away into a spot of shadow that rippled across the ground at incredible speeds, leaping out a few feet away from Cerberus into its true form and slamming into the hellhound with an eerie silence.

Its form wavered and shifted, one second its arms were claws, the next each were twin gigantic blades, the next hammers. The hellhound backed away, ripping apart its adversary's flesh as it did so, yet whatever shadow-flesh that Cerberus' attacks did not set on fire simply flowed back into the greater mass. It was causing damage, but only half of what it should normally have inflicted.

Nek'il didn't have that problem, and within a dozen seconds of combat, Cerberus was bleeding from many places across its body, and at least two eyes had been cut out.

The shadow-creature seemed to grin at it. **"Ready to die, dog?"**Its mouth opened, showing dozens of interlocking rows of teeth spun and whirred, like a lamprey's mouth, only a thousand times worse, as each tooth was comparable to a shark's.

The hound spat three balls of fire at it, and for once, the creature didn't bother dodging. The spheres slammed into its chest, and black fire splashed across its body, almost indistinguishable from the shadow-stuff that made it up.

It just seemed to grin wider. **"My turn."**Its head dived forward, clamping down on one of Cerberus' heads, while its arms turned into a mass of thick tentacles that bound the other two heads. It could care less about the claws that raked its body.

Its mouth shuddered, grinding and crushing the head inside, and with a crunch, it destroyed one head. It opened, releasing a mass of unrecognizable flesh, before its entire body pulsed, and its lower body shrunk even as the arms grew thicker and stronger.

The tentacles tightened, then crushed the heads they gripped into pulp.

It released the corpse, which immediately melted into liquid shadow that shot back towards its master.

His duty done, Nek'il shifted direction to his master, then leisurely started walking towards the battle.

Part of it was because it was in no rush. It had complete confidence that his master could win against Hercules, especially with three other sabers aiding her. Another was because though it had squarely won the fight, it had not done so unscathed. At least a third of its original mass had disappeared, and it was not looking forward to getting hit by a demigod.

It was demon, the strongest Merlin Ambrosius could bind that could operate as Arturia's guard after Avalon was stolen from her, and anything divine was anathema to its kind. Cerberus, due to its infernal origin, unfortunately did not share that trait or it would have won the bout, but the greatest hero of Greece, a son of the god of the heavens himself, most certainly did.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Fighting Berserker and the Nemean Lion at the same time was difficult.

Though the hellfire had disappeared from Hercules' weapon, his strength was still incredible, creating razor wind just with the force of his swings, his speed was still unmatched, and he was still an untiring behemoth. Likewise, the Lion was a feline, known for their extreme reflexes and speed. It was also a legendary phantasmal beast, an apex predator among other magical creatures, and powered by the legends of its wrath.

But it was not impossible.

Nero herself had gained a strange glint in her eyes when she saw the Lion, and had immediately 'called dibs', charging the beast and stunning it with a blow from her overly-large sword. She continued swinging, and kept the beast in a stun-lock. She was muttering something about a reenactment, and god knows what went on in her mind...

That left Saber and Lily to face Hercules.

They kept to their previous tactics, mostly dodging, but every now and then blocking, the other putting in a hit while the axe-sword was busy. It was not enough though, and the two leapt away after a particularly strong overhead swing.

Saber frowned. "This is much harder with just the two of us."

Lily nodded. "Agreed. Allow me to level the playing field." She drew a pure white dagger from the hilt strapped to her belt. It was large thing, almost a short sword, and its pearly surface gleamed gloriously in the moonlight. "**Carnwennan**." She proclaimed, activating the noble phantasm and throwing it at Berserker.

It met his swing, and Saber's eyes widened in shock when it met his weapon with enough force to make his arm swing backwards. The dagger skittered away, deflected, then flew back in with the same speed it had when thrown!

She glanced at Lily, but the white-clad servant had already charged, for some reason wielding Caliburn one-handed.

The answer revealed itself when a dark blue glow manifested in her free hand, forming into a long spear, seven feet long, with a thick haft and a large leaf-shaped blade coated in a smoking black substance. It was a powerful weapon, undeniably at least A-class, near Caliburn's level, and it radiated bloodlust like a starved wolf.

Saber followed, but Lily, with her higher agility, had already reached Hercules. Once more the dagger slammed into Berserker's axe, and the mad servant was unable to divert the Queen of Knights from her goal. The white servant stabbed with the spear, and the blade sunk deep into Berserker's stomach. With a prana burst, she pulled herself upward, using the embedded spear as a fulcrum, and Caliburn, suddenly glowing in a near-blinding white fire, slammed down into Hercules' face.

Whatever the white fire was, it was potent. Unlike her other blows where just getting past the skin took effort, this one cut through with barely any resistance, chopping his skull in half and going a third of the way into splitting his body in half.

Knowing Hercules' noble phantasm, Lily immediately tore her weapons out of Hercules' body, leaping backwards and landing beside a shocked Saber.

The King of Knights stared at the azure spear, then at the white dagger that had returned to its sheath without any beckoning. "Carn. Ron. How?"

Lily grinned. "I lived for centuries, Saber. I did not spend all that time using just Caliburn. Merlin improved them, and I wielded them enough times that they are a part of my legend now."

They heard the ground shake, and turned to see Nero _strangling_the Nemean Lion_._

It was a surreal sight. The Empress of Rome had apparently decided to dispel her blade and face the lion in hand-to-paw combat. And she was _winning._

Her fists, enhanced by prana burst and empowered by her own A-class strength, had pummeled the lion's indestructible hide. There was its weakness. The hide itself was invulnerable, thus it could not be cut or pierced, but the force from blows still came through, and Nero's punches had bruised and stunned the beast.

Then, when she finally thought that she had done enough damage, she had slammed its head to the ground with a two-armed hammer blow, then grabbed its neck from behind and started _squeezing._

She was also apparently chanting something while doing so. It was...oh god, really?

"And so, with a mighty flex-" She said, grinning and squeezing with all her strength. "-Hercules used all his strength to choke the life out of the beast. And with a bubbling gurgle..." The lion's struggles slowly got weaker. It was on its back, and Nero was gripping it by the neck from behind. It had no weapon it could use against her other than its weight, and that bothered Nero none.

Prana burst activated, and Nero's arms suddenly tightened beyond what a throat could allow, and a sick crack echoed in the streets. "...the great beast, the invulnerable lion, expired..." She finished, letting go of the corpse that slowly thinned back into just a golden pelt.

She turned to them, a too-wide smile on her face. "Well, how's that for a reenactment? I am _good_aren't I?"

Saber and Lily gaped at her, and even Hercules was given pause.

And that was when Alter, the Tyrant of Knights, in all her loathsome glory, arrived.

An aura of blood and terror followed her, a corrupt power that sent shivers running down their spines as they turned to face the returning ally.

There was a pause, as Alter entered the battle, with her sword bare for all the world to see, the shadow archdemon no longer hiding it with its body.

Distaste and nervousness was visible on Nero's face at the sight, and even Berserker ceased combat to stare at the grand blade. However, it was Saber and Lily that showed the most extreme reactions.

Lily almost dropped her sword, and her body was shaking as she stared at the once-holy blade. "No...what...it can't be..." She whispered.

Saber's jaw had dropped, and she screamed at Alter when she regained her voice. _"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"_

Alter grinned, and in her hands a corrupted sword that screamed of murder glinted in the light. Ebony steel shone under the moonlight, and the red light across the blade looked nothing less than bloodstains on the sword. "What I had to do." She faced Berserker. _"Excalibur:..."_She whispered, and the build-up of energy was sensed by all.

The other Sabers leaped out of the way.

Black and red light formed together, and she swung the corrupted blade horizontally. **"REAP!"**A crescent of black outlined in red leaped out, and cut through Berserker's body like a hot knife through butter.

The body fell once more, and Ilya, despite her earlier confidence, started shaking. "_Four_lives...what the hell have you summoned, onii-chan?"

The body regenerated, and once more, Hercules stood tall and proud, yet there was something in his eyes, not fear, for he could never fear, but rather an acknowledgement of a threat. Alter had to die if this battle was to be won.

Ilya however felt a sinking feeling as she studied the situation more.

Berserker had lost eight lives already, one from Saber, three from the white fire, and now four from that black crescent, and only half of the enemy servants had revealed their noble phantasms, and ohdammit, was that Cerberus' necklace back on Berserker? The shadow-beast actually won?!

She wanted to scream in frustration. It wasn't fair! Onii-chan was supposed to be weak! Easy to kill! Not somekind of prodigy that could summon and support four ludicrously powerful servants!

Her eyes narrowed. _'Is that why you abandoned me, father? Because I was too weak?'_ It was a strange thought, one that made little sense, but it was the only one that did. Out loud she said, "Berserker! Retreat!"

A pause, as the mad servant vaguely considered continuing the fight. But then her safety came to his mind, and he turned and ran, stopping only to gently carry her, then leaping away as fast as he could. The lion pelt disappeared from the ground, appearing on his back, though it seemed to be less now, containing none of the power and glory of a noble phantasm, just the coat of a large lion.

Silence.

Saber stomped towards Alter, and Invisible Air flickered as she wondered whether she should unleash Excalibur. "What have you done to it?! Why is it corrupted?!"

Alter looked at her blade, at the ebony steel and bloody marks, and shrugged. "Corrupted? No, I think not." She grinned. "I call it **bloodied."**

Lily stepped forward, frowning. "What did you do, Alter? What changed its aura into _that?"_She would not accept that Alter's Excalibur was originally like that. She just _couldn't._

The grin widened. "I used it, is what I did. I used it against my enemies so much that it gained a thirst for their blood." A chuckle. "I regret **nothing."**

Lily and Saber's expressions tightened, and the threat of violence filled the air. Invisible air seemed close to being discarded, Caliburn started to burn, and Excalibur Sanguine seemed to greedily await the slaughter.

Shirou stepped between them, expression stern despite the terror in his stomach. "Stop."

Saber glared at him. "Shirou, you do not understand the sacrilege she has committed? She must be stopped!"

The sword-incarnation's eyes narrowed. "We have already agreed on how this war is going to be done. You two will fight together, and the one with the most kills wins the grail."

She winced. "But..."

Alter laughed. "Ahh, yes. That agreement. Will you go back on your oath, knight?"

Saber shifted her glare back to Alter.

Shirou sighed. "Please."

A still moment, where the decision of one person determined the fates of a multitude.

Saber herself sighed, and Invisible Air stabilized. She gave Alter a smoldering look. "I _will_win this war." She walked away.

Shirou breathed out in relief, nodded to the others, and walked back to Rin.

Lily glanced at Alter, at her corrupted sword, and the cold expression on her face. "Why?"

Alter gave her a strange look, and from behind her cold façade, a tired voice spoke out. "Because a leader can only defend, react, for so long, before deciding that more of her people would be spared if she took the offensive. It was a hard choice, Lily, but as I've already said, I regret it not."

Lily nodded in understanding. "There are many ways to rule. You simply chose one of them." She looked at Excalibur Sanguine. "As much as its sight tears at my heart...I cannot fault you for your actions." With that, the two walked back and joined the rest of the group.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Angra Mainyu stirred in the grail.

There had been a disturbance, a great force had summoned a servant, and instead dragged out not one, not two, but _four_servants.

Whatever that force was, it had summoned them at full power, and no doubt could readily supply them with prana.

The war was won for that individual. It would be an easy win. As they said these days, _it was in the bag._

Easy...something that was done with little to no effort, with little hardship.

The summoner would have no trouble with this war, he would win in without suffering...

...

...

_**THAT COULD NOT BE ALLOWED!**_

Angra Mainyu raged. _There must be suffering! A grail war was not complete without everyone in pain!_

_But how? How to make it hard for him?_

_Hmm...perhaps._

_But no, magi these days, they did not trust. Even if a hundred masters were to enter, the chances of a normal alliance would still be horribly slim._

_But...what if a master had multiple servants?_

_Yes...that would work._

The energies in the grail had never been used, and it had been gathering power for a total of five grail wars now. It would take effort, but nothing worthwhile was achieved without effort.

_Yes, multiple servants for each master. _He would shoulder more of the energy needed for each servant, and that blasted summoner would find this war nowhere near as easy as he had thought.

_Yes...that would be the plan..._

And so, a plan was made, individuals across the globe were chosen, and a grail war unlike anything anyone had dreamed of, commenced.


	5. Chapter 5

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

_Blades._

_Shirou Emiya dreamed of blades._

_A crimson spear, cursed and radiating bloodlust. Gifted by a warrior so great so she was unto a god._

_A stone weapon, jagged and crude, but no less deadly for that. Shaped from the stone pillar of a hero's tomb._

_A blue spear, powerful, poisonous, vampiric. A white dagger, made to hunt and harry the enemy. Both crafted by hands not quite human._

_Four more appeared in his eyes. Four great blades, for four great heroes._

_A giant red sword. Curved, holy. Forged in a volcano by the hands of one who considered herself an artist beyond compare in all she did, then blessed by great priests, and enchanted by powerful wizards. It would be impractically heavy for most people, but to its wielder, its great weight was just fine, just another proof of how high she had been elevated above normal men._

_A king's sword. Beautiful and radiant, burning with a white fire whose flames purged all evil. It could not vaporize armies, not could it sunder castle walls, but all who had faced it had died all the same. There was no other sword its wielder had used since it had been gifted to her. It was a king's sword, elevated from mere ornamentation to a true weapon of war._

_A bloody sword. Black of steel, bloody of mark. A great blade that had killed so many men it now thirsted for their blood, yet was no less grand for that bloodlust. It was the darkness of men, weaponized into glorious, lethal form, a darkness that swallowed all hope and smothered enemies in despair. A killer's weapon._

_A sword of promised victory, whose glorious light destroyed all who had stood before it, granting triumph to its wielder time and time again. Only once had it failed, when it and its scabbard were not present in their final, most important battle._

_Its scabbard._

_A vague image._

_Something magnificent, made from gold and cobalt, a shape that radiated glory and light, even with his blurred sight._

_Hazily, Shirou reached for the image._

...And woke up between four beautiful females.

He froze, brain not quite up to date as to why four blonde women, European by the looks of it, would be sleeping with him.

Then he remembered, and he tried oh so hard to knock himself out.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Broken. So broken." Rin muttered to herself as they continued walking to the church. "SO broken..."

Shirou licked his lips nervously. "Umm...Rin? Is there a problem?"

The twin-tailed girl appeared to not notice him, continuing in her muttering. "...I mean, the war's won now, but it's just being given to me instead of being earned..."

Shirou glanced at the servants, taking care not to look in Nero's general direction just in case, asking for clarification. They just smiled at him, finding amusement in his confusion and basking in their victory.

Finding no help, he turned back to Rin.

She had yet to stop. "...granted, it's being given on a silver platter, and one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but still..."

Shirou gulped. "Is something wrong?" He asked, louder, though not quite shouting.

Rin stopped, sighed, and stared at him. "No Emiya. Nothing's wrong. It's the fact that everything's going so absurdly right that I'm getting worked out on." She grinded her teeth together. "That, and I have yet to figure out how someone like you managed to survive all these years."

The sword incarnation chuckled nervously. "Luck I guess?"

She twitched, then turned back to walking. "Luck he says. Does he even have any idea how _dead _he should be right now?" She muttered under her breath.

Shirou heard it, vaguely, and said something that would have had other magi dropping their jaws. "Well, if you want, I could always teach you how to make nerve circuits." Apparently, that was his name for the abominations he had wrongly called magic circuits.

Rin tripped, badly, slamming facefirst into the ground.

Shirou was at her side immediately. "Tohsaka-san, are you okay?"

She sat up, rubbing her forehead and giving him a look that was equal parts a glare and shocked staring. "You...you...do you have any idea what you just said?"

The redhead frowned. "...I don't follow you."

Rin pointed a finger at his face. "Magi don't just say something like that! You're offering to teach me your own personal method to glory! That's like a magus teaching an outsider his family's arts! You don't just do that!"

The frown deepened. "I know about fading mysteries, but this doesn't rely on that. No matter how many people use it, it won't get any weaker. Magi strive for Akasha right? Won't research go faster if people shared things like this?"

Rin twitched. Shirou had hit the nail right on the head. Though there _were _probably many kinds of magic that would not get weaker despite an increase in users, magi, being the reclusive and secretive jerks that they were, wouldn't share it even with that knowledge, further stunting their progress. It was just another failing of magi.

"Argh. You...stupid...argh." She stood up. "Why would I even use that anyway? With what the hell you've done to yourself, you can't ever use your normal circuits anymore or risk a backlash that just might kill you. Even then, the procedure's too lethal. I could kill myself."

Shirou scratched his head. "Well, maybe I'm doing something different that makes it not so lethal?"

It was ludicrous, yet could just be exactly the reason why he wasn't dead. Still... "I still can't use it. I'm already geared to _actual _magic circuits." Rin said.

Shirou shrugged. "You can teach it to your children, I guess. I can teach them if you want." The redhead didn't quite completely understand social customs you see.

Rin, in reaction, blushed madly. "W-w-what? Tha...that's too forward of you!"

Thankfully, Shirou realized his blunder, and was able to share in the embarrassment. "I didn't mean it that way!" He reacted, perhaps a bit too forcefully.

The red flush changed from mortification to rage. "Oh, now I'm not good enough for you?" She still hadn't gotten over the fact that he was a walking prana monster who, in a few years of blundering, had achieved a level of power that would have taken other magi a lifetime. If they reached it that is.

Shirou raised his arms protectively. "Not that way either! I think you're very pretty, I just didn't..." he trailed off as he realized what he said, and the two shifted back to nervous blushing.

A laugh had them turning in the direction of the sabers, and they found four very amused servants.

Nero was outright laughing, Lily was stifling her chuckles, and even Saber was sporting a smile.

Alter took the cake with her comment though. "Truly, if I had fools like you two in my kingdom, the laughter from my people would have never stopped."

More twitching from Rin. She should stop doing that, Shirou had heard somewhere that that was bad for one's health.

Rin made an about face, stoically ignoring the servants, though the twitching eyebrow meant she wasn't quite as successful as she liked. "Later, I'll deal with this later..." She looked forward, where a church was now visible a block or two away. "We're almost there anyway."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"There is something wrong with this place." Lily said, voicing the other servants' thoughts.

Nero nodded. "Not all darkness is evil, as Hades has proven before. But this...I do not like this."

Saber frowned. "Shirou, I'd rather you not go here."

Alter snorted. "Bah. A little blood and you tremble." She looked at the church. "Though the place does feel despicable." Now she looked at Rin. "Magus, is this truly needed?"

Rin nodded. "Yes. You need to alert the war's coordinator that you're joining if you're a master. Speaking of which..." She looked at the other sabers. "I don't think it would be a good idea to show up with four servants, don't you think?"

Alter spat at the ground. "Very well. I'll go, if you three are so shaken by this place." Before anyone could stop her, she had appeared in front of the doors and kicked it open. "Priest! I am servant Saber, last of the summoned! Answer, human!"

Rin palmed her face. "God..." She walked into the church, and Shirou, with a nervous shrug, followed, leaving the other three servants in the streets.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kotomine Kirei looked blankly at Alter with empty eyes. "So this is the last servant? I did not expect one of the Saber class to be so rude."

Alter's eyes narrowed. "You would do well to watch your tongue, priest, lest I rip it off that insolent mouth."

The priest made a grand bow. "Forgive me, I overstep my bounds." There was no emotion in his voice, like a machine given form.

Alter huffed, and decided to ignore the priest.

Rin crossed her arms. "Can we get on with this? This is Shirou Emiya, the last master. Register him and you won't see any of us until the end of the war."

Something seemed to light up in Kirei's eyes at the mention of the name, and he nodded. "Of course." He turned to Shirou. "Do you understand what you have been drawn into?"

Shirou breathed deeply. Something about the priest didn't sit well with him, something that ran deeper than dislike, more of an urge to murder. For someone who had had good relations with nearly everyone he met, it was a disconcerting feeling. "Yes." He looked at the man's eyes, and suppressed a shiver. "It is a war, a war between heroes of legends where the only way to win is to kill all others, all for a wish."

The priests' smile grew wider. "Then you know you will have to kill if you join? There is still a chance to back out. If you relinquish your command seals and leave the war, I can grant you asylum in this church."

A nod. "I know. But I fight not to win, but to minimize casualties. If any have to die, it will be those who have chosen their fate. If I will see this war to the end, I will ensure no one innocent gets hurt." Shirou's eyes turned steely. "The tragedy of the last war will not happen again."

A chuckle. The priest raised his arms. "Then Shirou Emiya, last of the masters, has officially joined. Let the Grail War proper, begin." He finished darkly.

Alter had shaken her head and marched out, and Shirou and Rin soon followed. They didn't want to be near the priest any longer than they had to.

They had taken a detour to Rin's house, where the school idol had taken all the essentials she needed moved into his house. Somehow, he had been convinced to be the pack mule, and the tired Emiya gracefully thanked the gods for the art of reinforcing, for he would have been unable to get through the night without it.

Then came the sleeping arrangements.

"Where is your room, Shirou?" Saber asked.

"Uhh, there?" He pointed at a door, and with a nod, the King of Knights walked in, followed by the other three servants.

He frozen, then, "Wait, what are you four doing there? That's a boy's room!"

Lily chuckled. "Why, to protect master Shirou of course!"

Shirou felt his eyebrow twitch. "What?"

Nero nodded. "Enemies are everywhere. You are our link to this world. You die, we lose. We can't just leave you alone to sleep, Assassin might kill you and we'd never know!" She muttered, supposedly under her breath, but everyone heard it nonetheless, "well, until you die at least"

Shirou gaped at them. "...but that's a boy's room!"

Saber raised an eyebrow. "And?"

Shirou pointed at them. "Girls can't sleep with a boy unless they're married!"

Saber shook her head. "You must not think of us as people, Shirou. We are servants, your weapons, treat us as such."

Nero shoved Saber aside. "Oh none of that, you. Like _this." _She walked up to Shirou, smiling. "Really? I thought a..._healthy _boy like you would..._hmm, _**enjoy **the chance to sleep with four beautiful women..." She breathily said, holding his arm affectionately.

Shirou froze, mind stopping at the absurdity of the situation.

Lily chuckled, and joined in on the fun. "I thought so too, unless..." She suddenly teared up. "...unless, our master, doesn't think we're pretty enough? Will you only accept that black-haired master into your bed?"

Shirou yelped, waving his arms. "No! I didn't mean it that way!"

Alter spoke up for the first time. "Perhaps you are gay?"

Silence.

The four servants looked pointedly at him.

Shirou shivered. "Not that either!"

Alter nodded. "Then you will have no problems with us sleeping with you." Her eyes narrowed. "I will not let my greatest chance to victory disappear because my summoner is too foolish to accept a guard."

Saber sighed. Seeing others who looked so much like her act so..._childishly, _was unnerving, but at least they got results. Shirou was stubborn when he truly wanted to be.

Shirou closed his eyes, his brain not quite comprehending how he had lost the argument so quickly. "But...you're girls..."

Saber rolled her eyes. "Master, if you truly wish it, we can just stand guard the entire night. We are servants, we have no need for sleep."

Shirou sighed. When given a choice between a horribly uncomfortable night or leaving four women to stay awake for his sake while he slept, there was no competition, even if they really didn't need sleep. It was just common courtesy. "If I'm sleeping, you're sleeping too. Alright, you can sleep with me." That just sounded wrong in his ears.

Lily chuckled. "Don't be so nervous, Shirou. It's fine as long as no one instigates anything. Unless..." She gave him a mock-suspicious frown. "...our master isn't a pervert that would take advantage of us, right?"

Disregarding the fact that any one of them could snap him in half with one hand, Shirou Emiya was in no way a pervert. He sighed. "Can we just...?" He wanted to get this over with already.

They laughed at his expense.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Which brings us to the situation now.

That is, waking up with four beautiful women, all of which apparently liked grabbing onto their bedmates when asleep. Alter and Saber were on the outside, with Nero and Lily next to him. Alter and Lily had ended up locked together in a rather scandalous position, while Nero had each arm around his and Saber's waists.

Thankfully, it wasn't quite as tight as he thought, and with several minutes of effort, he managed to get loose.

He stood up, took a moment to admire the four, then walked out to prepare breakfast for them. If their appetites from last night was anything like they normally were, he'd need to cook a lot to feed them.

Then he ran face-first into a zombie.

He tripped backwards, hands up to ward off its teeth and preparing Words of Fire and Swords to purge the abomination. Fire purges everything didn't it?

Wait a minute...oh.

Shirou slowly stood up, smiling nervously in embarrassment. "Ah, Tohsaka-san...I almost didn't recognize you." _'I'm guessing you're not a morning person, huh?'_

The not-zombie looked at him with dead eyes. "...bathroom..." Shirou pointed at a door three rooms away, and she hobbled over inside.

The redhead sighed. "To think, that the school idol..." He shook his head, then walked into the kitchen, smiling at the prospect of feeding the four servants once more. Cooking was something he loved, and though Taiga's praises were nice, hearing it from royalty was quite something else.

Halfway through all the food, he remembered something that had been nagging him since he woke up. Then he heard the door open.

'_Oh crap.'_

"Sempai! I'm here-...oh." Sakura said, then trailed off, apparently seeing something that shocked her.

Anxiously, he walked out, and saw the confrontation between Rin, who had now recovered from her zombie-like state, and Sakura.

The plum-haired girl looked shocked at the sight, as if she couldn't quite believe that Rin was standing in front of her. "S-sempai, why is she here?"

Rin grinned. "Oh, my house had a bit of an accident. It's getting renovated right now, and Emiya-san here volunteered his house for me to stay in until it's finished."

Sakura looked at him. "Is this true?"

The redhead swallowed nervously. "Uhh, yes?"

Then Taiga walked in. "Shirou! I'm hungry, I need fo..." She stopped when she saw Rin. "What's a female doing in your house?! Have you been doing questionable acts while I was gone, Shirou?!"

Shirou sighed, and prepared to give his explanation once more.

The four sabers chose that time to walk out of his room and demand breakfast.

They stopped when they saw the two new females, and a tense silence settled in the house.

Shirou sighed once more, clutching the bridge of his nose and wondering what he had done to deserve this.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"So let me get this straight, you" Taiga pointed at Rin, "are staying here until renovations are done because Shirou volunteered his house" Rin nodded, "and you" now at the four blondes, "are here because you're old acquaintances of Kiritsugu and Shirou said you can stay here until your business is done?" They nodded.

Taiga placed a fist onto her palm. "Of course, of course...NOT!" She stood up, pointing menacingly at the sabers. "Rin I can understand, but you four? You came out of nowhere! Who are you anyway?!"

They looked at each other, then nodded.

Lily spoke, "We...are sisters. I am Lily. She is Alter, that is Nero, and the last is Saber." They looked so alike they couldn't be anything else.

Taiga glared at them. "That still doesn't explain why you're here."

Shirou decided to try out a well-used excuse he heard people kept on using...in movies, that is. "They're here to hunt down a criminal. You can say they're agents, or cops, almost. It may be the one killing people with a bladed weapon." It was using the sudden string of gas leaks and murders for his own benefit, but he couldn't think of anything right now.

Taiga blinked. "Really?"

Shirou nodded. "Really." The sabers nodded with him.

Taiga shook her head and crossed her arms. "Hmm, Kiritsugu knew enough people that that's probably true. I'm still keeping an eye on you though!" She declared, then sat back down. "Now that that's done, let's eat!" she declared.

Then stopped when she noticed that nearly all the food was gone. "Wah? Where did it all go?" Then she looked up and saw the four servants finish off their last helping, then take the rest of what was left and finish that off too, and yet they managed to do all that without breaking any table manners and looking graceful all the time, _somehow._

Saber nodded. "It was a good meal."

Lily smiled. "Very nice."

Nero giggled. "More than nice. He's a master, most certainly."

Alter gave a grunt. "Adequate."

Shirou smiled at the praise.

Taiga cried.

Thankfully, Shirou had prepared a second course, thought he sabers ate most of that, too.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"No." Shirou stated.

Saber frowned. "Shirou, enemy servants may be there. If we do not go, we cannot protect you."

Shirou shook his head. "And no means no. Besides, I can always just use a command seal, right?"

Alter growled. "And what if they cut off your arm?"

Shirou held up his arms, both of which had command seals. "Both of mine have command seals."

"And if they cut off both?" Alter added.

A sigh. "Dammit. How about this, you can wait on the bench near the school. It's close enough that you can sense me and come to my aid in an instant."

They frowned, but nodded.

"You're going to need to change into something else. You guys are too conspicuous." That was saying it lightly. Not only were they foreigners, even without their armor, their dress and way they acted was...well, you get the point. "Especially you, Nero."

The Empress of Rome pouted. "Why?"

Shirou decidedly did not look down as he pointed at her dress. "Your dress." Rin had been shocked once she had finally noticed that fact after Berserker's fight. She called it 'scandalous, perverted, and whorish.'

Nero had called it 'fashionable.'

The red-clothed servant chuckled. "Oh, no need to worry, my master. It is not transparent, rather, I _let _people see!" It was even believable, considering she was a servant.

Shirou frowned. "It's still too strange. You guys need to dress more like Saber." The blue servant had taken a simple white shirt and purple skirt as her civilian clothes, much less noticeable than Nero's outrageous wear and Alter and Lily's gothic dresses...actually, considering some of the people in the city, Alter and Lily's 'civilian' dresses wouldn't actually be too unusual.

He said as much, and with a chuckle, Nero suddenly changed.

Her red clothes disappeared, to be replaced with what could only be described as a fetish wedding dress.

Shirou palmed his face. "Pull up the zipper and it just _might _be considered decent."

Nero grinned.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shirou stood on the school's rooftop, Rin beside him. "Did you feel it?"

The brunette nodded. "Yes. A bounded field, designed to suck out the souls of people once activated."

Shirou shivered. "I knew it was bad, but not that bad."

Rin frowned. "It is. Even worse, it's too complex to be one from a magus. This has to be the work of a servant. We can delay it, but not stop it."

"But if we delay it enough, we might buy enough time to find the servant and make him stop." Shirou surmised.

A nod. "Exactly."

Shirou smiled. "Well, at least the path's clear. This is exactly what I joined the war for, to stop this kind of slaughter. Anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"Have you...sensed anything different with supporting your servants?" She asked.

Shirou shook his head. "Not really. What are you talking about?"

Rin waved him off. "Never mind. It's nothing. Go back to your friends. We still technically don't know each other." Shirou nodded, and walked out.

Rin sighed as he left.

She had noticed it the moment she woke up. For a magus who had great control over their circuits and flow of prana, the sudden decrease in the cost of maintaining a servant, more than a third even, was hard not to notice.

Even a prana monster like Shirou should have noticed it. Was it just her, or was Shirou the exception?

She didn't know what had caused it, or why, but she had a bad feeling about it...

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ilyasviel von Einzbern raged in her castle.

Well, it wasn't really her doing the damage. Rather, she was raging, and she was ordering Berserker to destroy things in her name.

"Why?! How?!" it was impossible. It just didn't make any sense. HOW did onii-chan manage to summon four powerful servants like that? It just made no sense!

And yet he had done so. He had summoned **four **sabers, each one capable of keeping up with, and killing, Berserker. Together, they were unstoppable.

The war was lost.

"No." She stated. _"No."_

She cast her magic, and the stone that made up the floor of the castle moved, forming a complex summoning circle. "I will not be denied. I will not be defeated so easily. This is what I was made for, and I will not fail in this."

The circle lit up.

"If he can do it, then so can I!" She was not going to be denied her revenge!

She chanted. She chanted in a language almost forgotten. She chanted for hours, all the while pouring all the mana she could channel into a circle that by all rights would not be able to produce anything by the rules of the war.

She ignored common sense and continued, speaking and pleading with the gods in her head for guidance and aid, that she may receive mighty servants to equal that of her estranged brother's. Mighty enough to defeat his four sabers.

She poured all the mana she could channel into the circle, and in the end, a flash of light befell her.

She winced, blinded, as the clanking of armor reached her ears.

She froze. Armor. Berserker did not wear armor. Had she...actually succeeded?

Slowly, she opened her eyes, and gazed upon two kneeling figures in ancient greek armor that she recognized from the carvings in Berserker's tomb.

Ancient in that the style was old, but not crude, nor was it weak. Their armor was masterwork, and filled with designs and markings lovingly crafted into the armor by mastersmiths. It was armor worthy of kings, and both of her servants wore them with ease of familiarity.

They spoke, both at the same time. "I have answered your summoning, I am servant Lancer/Archer."

Silence, then they suddenly sprang away, and killing intent filled the air as the two warriors gazed at each other in hatred.

The one with the plain shield and a grand spear, no doubt his noble phantasm, stalked threateningly towards the other. "_You. _You scheming fiend, what have you done now?"

The one wielding a plain sword and shield, with a strangely-made sack and a gigantic bow on his back, slowly backed away, trying to increase the distance between the two of them. "If I had planned this, Trojan, you wouldn't be here with me, or you'd be here, standing in a ring of spears. I know nothing."

The spearman's weapon started glowing. "Well, no matter. You're here, with no tricks, no camp to hide to, and no way to run. I will enjoy killing you."

"Berserker." Ilya said.

Berserker manifested, and the two sworn enemies stopped, turning and staring at the steel demigod that stood before them.

The bowman gaped. "Zeus' beard. Hercules?"

Ilya stepped forward. "I could care less about whatever bad blood is between you. I have been cheated out of my revenge. I need your help. You are to be my additional servants, to combat a master with _four _sabers. Refusal shall result in...elimination." She said, in a voice cold with steel and fury.

Silence, as the two weighed in the possibilities and consequences. They hated each other, and wanted the other dead, but right here in front of them stood a powerful master despite her looks, who commanded the greatest hero of Greece, empowered by madness enhancement.

The bowman sighed. "Hercules as Berserker. Damn. Those four must have been powerful." He grinned. "It shall be all the more pleasing when we defeat them then?"

The Trojan growled, then lowered his spear. "I will be watching you, Greek. When the four are dead, your head is mine."

A smile. "You can try."

Then the axe-sword slammed down between them, and they fell backwards from the shockwave.

Ilya glared at them. "I will not have you scheming behind my back. You will fight like brothers-in-arms and you will support each other to your very best. Nothing less will be able to defeat those four." Her two new command seals, three on each hand, glowed threateningly.

The bowman frowned. "That bad?"

Ilya nodded. "My Berserker died eight times against them, and only half used their noble phantasms."

Silence.

The Trojan scowled. "What monstrous servants have been summoned in this war?"

The bowman shook his head. "I'll need to know everything, and I mean _everything_ if we're to win this."

Ilya nodded.

She would prove her strength. She was better than her brother.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bazett plopped down on a chair, shivering. "Dammit. How do we win this?"

A squirrel familiar had managed to find them midway in the fight, and what they had seen was nothing less than blood-chillingly terrifying.

Hercules, as Berserker. And he had been all but annihilated by the four sabers.

Mighty indeed.

Lancer scowled. "I'm still faster than any of them, but not quite that much. I'm strong, Bazett, but not strong enough to reliably beat even two of them. And their noble phantasms...I don't want that dagger getting thrown at me anytime soon, and that's just the start of it."

Bazett slammed her fist down on the chair. "Do we just give up then?"

Lancer frowned. "...well, we could always try summoning more servants."

Bazett rolled her eyes. "The slots are filled."

Cu Chulainn crossed his arms. "And he still somehow summoned four sabers. It wouldn't hurt to try. Heck, I'll help you. Maybe we can get three other Lancers that can fight those four." That was farfetched even with the sudden decrease in prana cost for maintaining servants that had happened this morning. She would only be able to support one more full-powered servant. They would have to make it count.

She stood up. "I guess you're right. But if we're doing this, it has to be perfect. Lots of prana stockpiled, the most complex summoning circle we can think of. I'd ask for a catalyst, but I don't think we can find one in such short notice. Three days of preparation, then a day for the entire summoning, at the least."

Lancer nodded. "Better than fighting them alone, at least."

Bazett sighed. "It'll still make a miracle for that to even work."

But it was their only chance. That master was unstoppable.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Luviagelita Edelfelt barged into her parents' room, panting heavily. "Mother! Father!"

Her father stood up blearily, woken from his sleep. "What?"

Luvia showed the markings on her hand, the two immediately stood up, studying the marks, the command seals denoting a master of the Holy Grail War.

Her father nodded. "This is a momentous occasion. We must prepare at once. You have access to the entire vault. Use the best jewels, summon the most powerful servant you can muster. We must not let this chance go to waste. Eternal glory is the reward to the winner."

Luvia nodded. "I know father, I know."

Her mother hugged her. "Oh, I'm so proud of you."

The day couldn't get any better.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Waver Velvet, also known as Lord El-Melloi the Second, lounged in a plush seat, smoking a cigar and holding a glass of expensive wine in one hand, a silver maid standing at his side, holding a wine bottle, ready to fill his glass the moment it was emptied.

He was the image of a spoiled noble, grand in bearing, with a refined taste, and the power to match.

He was anything but. His bearing had been acquired from trauma and experience, his taste from seeing magnificent legends dress and act, and the power from hardship, clawed into being with his very hands through bloody-minded determination.

He owed all of that to one man, a dead man, his king.

And now, appearing on his hand this morning, came the chance to once again meet that person, at the cost of joining one of the most brutal slaughters imaginable.

It was a no-show.

He stood up, downed the glass, then threw the precious antique at the wall, where it shattered as expected, wasting hundreds of dollars. He adjusted his coat and marched out, the metal maid following him. "For him, I do this. For my liege, for my king. The catalyst yet remains, and I shall use it again. I shall fight beside him again, even if..."

His eyes teared, and he continued marching even as he acknowledged a bitter pill of truth. "...even if he remembers me not." The servants summoned were not truly the heroes themselves, but copies of the original stored in the throne.

If he summoned Iskander, it would not be the Iskander he knew, but a copy that knew none of what they had experienced.

But his liege would wish to fight, to win, and conquer, and his king's wishes were his wishes, so he would march again to war.

He smiled at a thought.

_'Only this time, I'm much more experienced, deadly, and capable than I was before.'_

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**India**

A european man, fit, but with graying hair studied the markings that had appeared on his hand that morning.

He looked at an arrow he had picked up in an antique shop.

He could barely speak Indian, yet the words carved into the arrow, in the language of ancient India from the age of legends, he could read perfectly.

"_Fly true, strike true. _Words asking for luck, that this arrow, one of the hero's sixty million arrows, would hit and kill the enemy it was aimed at...and I found it the day before I get the seals for a freaking hero war." He said.

"I can summon him right now and go to Fuyuki. He's sure to be broken. But what about the others? What heroes could they summon? Arjuna, Hector? Maybe Achilles?" He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a bronze fragment, a fragment of a shield. Strange, he wondered what an invulnerable hero would need of a shield, being invulnerable and all. "Hopefully not, or this bit would be useless."

He stood up. "Well then, let's see how much I can stack the deck in my favor." He chuckled. "And that boy is sure to be a master, if he's not dead that is. Our reunion shall be..._interesting_..."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A tall man crouched in front of a shack, blue eyes watching the crumbling abode.

Then it blew up.

The shack exploded with enough force to send the wooden boards flying hundreds of feet into the air, and a gigantic inferno blazed where a shoddy building once stood.

Calmly, he stood up and walked over to the flames, two gigantic stone lions beside him. He pointed, and the two moved into the blaze, unfazed by the heat, and dragged out a corpse.

Definitely dead.

He took out a bottle, and drank deeply of the spirits. "To several dozen pounds of explosives detonated ten feet from the target: no amount of magical shielding can protect you from that shit." Well, unless you had True Magic or were one of the big hitters like Apostle Ancestors, but he wouldn't touch those with a ten-foot-pole anyway.

Then he sighed, and studied the marks that had appeared on his hand that morning. "I wish the git lasted longer, then I would have had an excuse to ignore this. Now I gotta meet the family again." He looked at the stone lions, and found no words of understanding from their impassive faces.

"Huh. Right, you can't think, can you? Blimey, you've been around so long it feels like you do sometimes." He had one of them grab the corpse as he headed towards the extraction point. "Hmph. Who knows, maybe I can pass this off to one of the suckers. I _really _don't want to get into a freaking war between heroic spirits."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An old man stood above the corpse of a magus.

The battle, if it could be called as such, had been swift and deadly.

The elder had approached the man, and demanded the command seals. Refusal had been met with...

"Earth, bind him. Wind, tear him to pieces."

The Words that had been Spoken could not be denied, and the man had been bound with hands of stone, before being torn to shreds with razor wind that had come out of nowhere.

Both held no trace of prana.

The victor picked up the hand that held the command seals. "Words of power, come, and settle upon me."

The command seals, miraculously, obeyed. They floated off the dead skin, and bound themselves to the elder's hand.

The ghost of a smile formed on the old man's face. "Now, perhaps this hell can finally end..."

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**And done. This chapter doesn't have as much action. Not all chapters can be a battle-fest.**

**Anyway, those are the new masters. Luviagelita, an enforcer who likes explosions, a magus who can apparently read dead languages, and some old dude who can Speak to reality itself or something.**

**And curb those fears of multiple versions of each servant. We're going with a diverse cast here. Also, for the Finnish: Simo Hayha is gonna be one of the assassins. Rejoice, for he shall be glorious.**

**Review. It feeds me.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Well, here's the next chapter. I kinda rushed this, so the quality might not be up to snuff.**

**As for the chapter itself, not much action save for the end, where I reveal just how burning, awesome, and absolutely burning I've made Nero's blade as.**

**Also, you shall see a bit of the differences between this Shirou and canon Shirou, along with the return of his magic/laser word-chainsword. What? Did you honestly think I'd let that thing go? That's going to be his weapon until he can trace noble phantasms, people!**

**Also, moe Alter.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

_Four swords, all of great, practically unparalleled make._

_One made by the fae as their greatest gift of a weapon to humans. It was a holy sword unrivaled by all others, and its light, the hopes and dreams of humanity crystallized into power, had never been stopped._

_Another, its twin, but corrupted, bloodthirsty. It was a sword that had spilled the blood of so many that it had developed a thirst for it. It was not crystallized valor that it released to purge its enemies, but humanity's dark will, its urge to murder and kill and destroy and...__**win.**__ In that, it was still recognizable as a sword of promised victory._

_Another one, similar of make from the first two, though made not by the fae, but by the hands of a wizard unparalleled, through whose veins ran the blood of the betrayer. It was a sword fit for a king, made for a king, and it should have been just a symbol, a mark of authority despite its great creation, but its wielder decided not. It had waded through countless battlefields, and though it held not the power to sunder a fortress, its white fires had always triumphed in the end._

_The last, a great red blade, five feet long at the least, and so heavy two men would have to struggle just to lift it. It was made by purely human hands, yet was no less powerful for that. It was forged in a volcano from the finest metal an empire could acquire, enchanted by the most skilled mages of the empire, blessed by the greatest priests of the twelve great gods, and sanctified by the god of the forge himself. There was no valor or honor or malice in the fire that resided in its core, only the pure heat and urge to char that a pure flame would have._

_The swords seemed to unfold, or his gaze going fundamentally deeper into the steel, either way, things were being revealed to him, images, memories..._

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shirou Emiya woke up, gasping for breath.

It was that dream again. The swords were imprinted in his mind, and seemed almost about to reveal more before he woke up.

He looked beside him, where once again the four had deigned to sleep with him. It was not Nero who held him this time, oh no. Nero was currently grasping onto Saber, all but shoving the King of Britain's face into her bosom, almost to the point of suffocation, while her arms and legs locked around the blue servant's body. Saber herself seemed not to have noticed, though that would definitely change when she woke up.

He stood up, or at least tried to, and found that Lily and Alter were not holding each other as last time. Rather, Lily was holding a pillow in a grip that would have broken a person if it were one, while Alter was...Alter was...

She was clutching his arms to his sides, while her legs did the same to his, preventing him from moving. She was also drooling on his shirt. How did he not notice that?!

Married with their rather strange attires (except for Saber, whose plain white shirt and skirt were quite normal) such as Nero's fetish bride outfit (he had already started hearing rumors about her at lunchtime in school, though thankfully no one had yet to connect her to him), Alter and Lily's gothic Lolita dresses (a group of similarly-dressed girls had even invited them over to a party. They had declined.), it looked like a scene straight out of an erotic novel.

But that was not the problem. The problem was getting out of Alter's grip NOW. _Without _waking her up.

Alter was not...well, she wasn't _evil _per se, but she wasn't nice either, and she definitely leaned more towards hitting people during problems than talking it out. He had a feeling that even if this was entirely her fault (he did not grab things in his sleep for one), she would blame him, and he _really _didn't want someone with A-class strength to hit him.

Then she woke up.

She did not move when she did, she merely opened her golden eyes and stared straight into his own amber ones. Silence, then her gaze move downward to study the situation. His body was in almost exactly the same position as when he had slept, while it was her body that was doing the, err...grasping.

She looked up again, and he started sweating when he saw her face suddenly turn obscenely, cutely, red. All with the same expression on her face, just a different color.

"Please don't hit me." He whispered.

Slowly, delicately, her limbs unwound from his body, and she turned on her side until she was lying flat on her back, looking straight up at the ceiling, her face still red. "This never happened." She whispered, but with a monarch's authority.

He gulped. "Y-yeah."

"Cook me breakfast." She ordered, and he stood up and ran out as quietly as he could.

The door closed, and Alter, the only one awake in the room, sighed. "He...is too pleasing for his own good." She muttered under her breath, trying to ignore how restful her sleep was when she was with him and how wonderful it was to hold him.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He ran into the kitchen, and found Sakura already cooking.

He blinked. She turned around and smiled beatifically at him. "Morning sempai."

Another blink. He glanced at the clock, and found that classes would start an hour and a half later. "You're here early." He was still reeling from Alter. Then backed up on how that might sound. "Not that that's a bad thing! I'm just surprised." He was a bit more sensitive to women these days, with how annoying any of the new ones in his life could end up with worse than a broken bone.

Sakura stirred the pot. "I just thought that you'd need help cooking, with all the new eaters and all. Those four especially, with how much they eat." Shirou didn't notice the dark undertone in her voice at the thought of the new housemates.

The redhead rubbed the back of his head. "Uhh, thanks Sakura, but you don't need to do that for my sake. I really don't want to trouble you."

She shook her head. "It's no trouble sempai, I'm just happy to help."

Shirou sighed, then smiled. "Then thanks Sakura." He moved closer and started familiarizing himself with what she was cooking. "I'm still not letting you do it on your own though. Here, let me help."

Sakura blushed, but obliged.

Time with Shirou was all she asked for, and it was all that kept her sane. She disliked the four servants (she knew, how could she not, with how much energy they possessed) who had dragged him into the meat grinder that was the Holy Grail War, and she disliked Rin, who seemed to have taken advantage of Shirou's natural kindness to join forces with her.

The only good thing about it was that Shirou had four servants, and was quite possibly the safest master in the war.

Which also begged the question, how _had _Shirou summoned four servants? She had known he was a magus. The wards surrounding the house that made it impossible to sense or scry was proof enough, as was his rare uses of magic in school to fix appliances, but she had not known he was capable of such a feat as summoning and maintaining four servants.

But the proof was in front of her. Even now, his body blazed with prana, giving more than his servants' fair share of energy, and consequently making the worms in her body writhe, though it was minimal for now and could be ignored.

He was still Shirou though. Whatever methods he had done to gain such power did not feel malicious, for his prana felt completely normal to her. So she would ignore it and stay by his side, for her sake as much as anything.

He was her lifeline, and time with him was her heaven.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shinji Matou was panicking.

He had a plan, a wonderful plan.

Set up Rider's bounded field on the school, wait for a few days, then activate when everyone was inside. Voila, the problem of him being unable to supply prana to his servant was fixed, those fools that were his schoolmates would be dead (especially that blasted Tohsaka), and Rider would be the most powerful servant in the war!

Then Emiya came in.

The school's 'fake janitor' was, somehow, a magus. And a **powerful **one at that!

Four servants. **Four!**

They surrounded the school, circling the grounds near it not even in astral form, but rather in public, to the point that many people's sensibilities had already been trampled by that pervert in the fetish bride dress!

Interestingly enough, rumors were circulating through the city about the four foreign women, sisters by the looks of it (many too were the stories of the simple-dressed one, who, it seemed, tended to palm her face at her siblings' antics so much to the point that it was her most recognizable trait in the stories).

But enough about that. There were four servants surrounding the school, all Emiya's if the energy that Rider sensed from him was any indicator. They weren't even weakened! Oh no, they weren't. Emiya had enough prana to keep them all at full power!

The moment Rider activated the bloodfort, those four would barge in and kill her, no questions asked. Even on her own grounds, four over-supplied servants were too much.

Trying to kill Emiya would be too hard too. He couldn't attack him in public, as that would reveal the existence of magic to the world, and who knew what his four servants would do if they suddenly sensed his death? Four noble phantasms at full power by four desperate heroes would be too much for Rider (and him, of course!).

Even if he tried to target Emiya in another one of his late-night fixings, at least two of his servants came to his side the moment everyone else left school, so that wouldn't work.

Shinji punched the wall in frustration. "Dammit! **Four** servants! Are you sure they're not hiding anything from me and he's just an anomaly?!"

"_Yes. This was completely unprecedented. A master should have only one servant. This...Emiya, seems to have had enough power to break Heaven's Feel." _Rider replied.

Thus, there was only one path.

"We're going hunting again, Rider. We can't use the bloodfort, so you'll have to get energy from eating people instead." Shinji ordered. He had planned on doing that at the start, and had even gone at it for a few days until Rider had revealed her noble phantasm.

Rider gave no response as they wandered out into the night.

Well, at least he could watch each one of them suffer and die.

It still didn't curb the fear in his gut.

Which was why he could only stare when Shirou showed up later. It was as if the world wanted to screw him over, and couldn't let _anything _go right for him.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The bloodfort had disappeared.

To Shirou, it had been a relief when stepping into school grounds hadn't resulted in that annoying sickly feeling, and said as much.

Rin noted how he merely called the horrible draining and rotting sensation as merely 'annoying', and wrote it down as another result of his horrendous mass of prana, making the prospect of having him as a husband and passing that down to their chil-No! Bad Rin! No thinking about marriage! You have a war to fight!

'_You mean __**He **__has a war to fight.' _A strange part of her subconscious pointed out, and she screamed mentally. _'AAAUGH!'_

"Do you have any idea why?" Shirou asked as they stood on the roof once more. Rin seemed...distracted, and it took a few seconds for her to take note of his question.

She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm pretty sure it's your fault."

Shriou blinked. "Explain."

She went into a pose, one of those positions she was fond of taking when explaining things to him, which were a lot, as aside from turning him into a prana-dynamo and a combat terror (for normal magi anyway), his teacher had apparently decided not to teach him a lot of things. Basic things, even. "You have four servants Shirou. Four. And they're at full power too. Servants can sense other servants along with prana, and since you've been keeping your circuits open and the four have been circling the school, it would be obvious that you're a master and that those four are yours. If any threat to you appears, like say, activating the bounded field, those four will leap in and kill the servant."

Shirou nodded. That made sense. "So he ran away?"

"Pretty much." Rin deadpanned. _'You're broken Shirou. SO damn broken.' _She thought.

"So...what do we do now?" Shirou asked. The 'gas leaks' were still happening, and recently, there had been stories of people being found drained of blood and life. At least the gas leak victims were only in comas. The ones drained, were _dead. _He couldn't just let that stand. Unconsciously he started clenching and unclenching his hands at the thought; a habit he developed whenever provoked.

Rin shrugged. "We don't have any leads. You go hunting I suppose, wander around at night and hope you find a servant." Hers was still recovering, and it would take a few days before he would be back to fighting condition, which coincidentally meant one-on-one combat with the sabers.

"I approve of that decision Praetor! I have dibs!" Nero suddenly proclaimed, and the two almost tripped turning around to face the servant, who had appeared out of nowhere on the roof, in her fetish bride dress.

Thankfully, it was zipped up.

"H-how did you get here? Did you jump? People could have seen you!" Rin shouted.

Nero 'hmphed' and stuck her nose in the air. "Imperial Privilege, plebeian. I have met assassins in my time, and though what I have learned is not at their level, it is enough to conceal myself from the eyes of normal humans."

Rin sighed. "Great. You have presence concealment too."

Nero chuckled. "Ahh, only D-rank. I always preferred to face my opponents in the open. I mostly used it for getting away from my guards when I was a child. An empress' urge to explore cannot be constrained by mere walls and men."

Somehow, Shirou could easily match that image to the nonchalant woman in front of him. However, "What do you mean by dibs?"

Nero placed a hand on chest in a flamboyant gesture. "Why, I have a devised a plan of utmost tactical brilliance, we four shall split up and scour the city for enemies! By dibs, I mean that I am the one that stays with you!"

A blink. "I thought you and Lily don't have a wish." Shirou asked.

Nero laughed. "Just because I have no wish does not mean I wish not to fight! The greatest artist finds inspiration everywhere, and battle is such a unique and driving experience that I myself have taken a liking to it!"

Well, that solved everything.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Which lead to what was happening now.

It was pure luck that Shirou had wandered straight into that section of the park, where what could only be described as an incredibly long-haired femme fatale of a servant was draining a woman vampire-style, with Shinji laughing and stroking his ego at the sight.

"Shinji?"

The query rang loud in the near-silence of the park, and the Matou boy froze, before woodenly turning around to face Shirou with his a look of terror on his face.

"_You." _The purple-haired boy breathed out.

A thump.

Shirou looked behind Shinji, where the woman had been dropped from the servant's perch, landing bonelessly on the ground, limp, **dead.**

The servant landed beside Shinji, seemingly relaxed with no weapons in her hands, but Shirou had heard enough about servants that their weapons could appear in a fraction of an instant, and even then, they were still horribly lethal without weapons. You could say that their very bodies _were _weapons sometimes.

But that was all lost on Shirou. His gaze was fixed on the woman, the _dead_ woman, the **corpse.**

"Shinji..." Shirou started, his voice a dread monotone that had Nero blinking in surprise.

His voice was cold, cold in a way that actually made her shiver. It was so unlike the bumbling happy chef that she knew.

"W-what do you want Emiya?" Shinji squeaked out, slowly backing away.

"Those murders, those people, with their blood drained...is it your servant?" Shirou asked, his voice steely. "Did you order her to do so?"

"A-and what if I did?" Shinji looked around him, wondering if the other three servants were about to come down on him. Where would they come from? Which direction?

Shirou seemed to slump, as if all life had gone out of him. He had thought Shinji was just a bit of a jerk, maybe worse when he saw those bruises on Sakura, and he had broken their friendship over that, but he had never thought it was this bad...

...but then again, a certain conversation came to mind.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**[Flashback]**

"A hero?" His teacher's shocked voice made Shirou wince. "A _hero_?!Are you a fool?"

But he persevered, and stood his ground. "It's my dream, master. I won't abandon it, not even for you."

The elder's eyes narrowed. "Do you even know what being a 'hero' truly means?"

Shirou's fidgeting answered his question, and the teacher growled in his throat. "Fool boy. To be a hero of the kind you speak of, one who destroys the monsters that persists even to this day, means to **kill.** It means fighting for the sake of others yes, but it is still fighting, and that means killing. To save someone, you must kill another."

Shirou frowned. "Why? Can't you just knock out the enemies?"

The loud guffaw from the teacher had him flinching. "Knock out? Oh, that'll be the day. Against normal humans, even those with weapons? Yes, I guess with enough training, your magic will do the trick if nothing else." His eye turned steely. "But you better make sure no one notices you. Only when there are no recordings, and even then only an instant of casting, and the Words better disappear right after they've served their purpose. You will NOT reveal the existence of magic no matter what happens. Doing so will only end up with the one you saved dying, along with everyone he's ever known and the city he was in."

The teacher leaned back. "That isn't the problem though. With your talents, undoubtedly you can provide the most good to the world with combat against destroyers rather than being a mere grunt of human aid groups. And therein lies the crux of the thing. You cannot fight with anything less than your all. To give less than your full power is to doom yourself and those you are trying to save. You are but another magus in a world filled with other, more psychotic magi, and monsters that are sometimes but a step behind from being able to kill with a glance. When you encounter those, there must be no hesitation and no mercy. Kill all threats, so that the greatest number may survive."

The elder cracked his knuckles. "But that is only with simple situations. Ever been to an apostle hunt, boy? Some vampires can corrupt and infect without needing to kill. What looks like a little girl, upon analyzation, is a walking time bomb ready to rip out your throat. You kill it, boy, despite how much it screams at you not to, so that it doesn't make you do the same to others."

Shirou looked away, the mental image making him a bit green. This had not been the reaction he had been expecting. He had known most thought of his dream as foolish, but this was the first time someone started logically pointing out the flaws and problems in such an ideal. "But..."

The Word-mage shook his head. "But that isn't the worst. There are some whose corruption lies not in the body, but the mind. Ever had a friend betray you? I did." Shirou winced. "Thought he was a friend until he tried to knock me out to dissect me. I killed him. It was hard, but I did. Haunted me for a while, knew the git for years."

Silence.

The elder sighed and sat back down. "But then again, I can't stop you. I chose to teach you and all I asked for was your utmost focus. You can do whatever you want when I'm done. I just want you to understand, boy, that being a hero isn't fun and games, it isn't those glorious stories that you hear about. There are some rules that I've found that govern proper heroics."

Shirou listened.

The adult continued, holding up one finger. "First rule: you cannot save everyone."

Shirou recoiled. "But isn't that-"

The elder's eyes narrowed, steely depths appearing. "Do you think yourself above the likes of the heroes of old, boy? Do you think you can, by yourself, illogically and perfectly succeed and save your entire life?"

Shirou could not. "I...no." It was a simple fact that the great powers and wonders of ancient times were never to be replicated once more. There would be no more men whose blows could break the bones of a dragon, no more magi whose spells could sunder a mountain. If those men and women could not make a perfect world, what could he, a simple magus, do?

The teacher nodded as he saw Shirou understand. "Good. You get it. You are not perfect, boy. The heroes of old were not, and therefore could not save everyone either, and they were the closest to perfect anyone could ever be. You cannot do anywhere near as well as they did. You save what you can, whenever you can, but understand that there will always be times that you will be unable to save all or even enough despite your best. Don't beat yourself up when that happens. Look forward to the future, and simply try harder next time."

Shirou nodded. "Yes master."

The elder smiled. He raised a second finger. "Second: judgement. We talk not of mere human enemies. That is for other humans to handle, though I understand helping if you are in the vicinity. No, you can help the most by eliminating the things that go bump in the night, and here I tell you, _show no mercy._"

Shirou blinked. Those words had been said with steely conviction unlike anything before. "What?"

The adult crossed his arms. "Monsters are called monsters for a reason. Inhuman monsters whose only purpose is to kill and destroy? You put those down like the mad dogs that they are. But then there the human monsters. Ironically, it is magi, the ones who call themselves the most refined of humanity, who becomes this the most. Most magi are bad business boy. Nobles are even worse. They think themselves above others, and so others are worth nothing, and so may be carelessly used and experimented on as long as it furthers their research."

Shirou paled. "That's horrible!"

A grave nod. "It is the truth. We don't live in a good world boy. Thousands die every day at the whims of those with more power than them. And that is why I am telling you to take the kill. Physical monsters obviously should be put down like animals. Magi however...the ones you will end up hunting are cold-blooded murderers who will never change, and even the more 'humane' ones are just apathetic. Unless you have an absolute foolproof way of keeping them locked away, then more often than not, when they get away, they will kill again. The death of one sinful life, to the possible deaths of complete innocents. Easy when you think about it isn't it? Death is the best solution. And that brings us to the third rule."

The man held up a third finger. "That's Morality. Do not love what you do. The killing and fighting is necessary, but don't love it. The moment you start to do so, you're on the slippery slope to being a psychopath who looks for things to hit. And while I guess it would feel nice to know you saved someone, remember that it's always better if no one had to die in the first place, if the villain hadn't become a villain and no one had to suffer." The elder nodded with finality. "That's the gist of it. Follow that and you'll be golden. It's the following that's hard."

Shirou breathed deeply. "When you killed your friend..."

"How did it feel?" The adult rubbed his beard. "I remember how hard it felt, how difficult it was to form the Words that would blow out his heart. I kept on thinking of how I could just bind him and ask him his reasons, that perhaps it was just a misunderstanding. I had to do it though. He caught me by surprise, and I wasn't as skilled as I am now. Either he died, or I did, and in the end, I had the moral high ground. He's dead, and I live today."

"Do you regret it?" Shirou asked.

The elder laughed. "No! I want you to realize this boy, so that you won't be stuck in a funk for a few years like I did: if a friend betrays you without a good reason, then they aren't your friend! I don't regret what I did now because I know he was a bastard who was jealous of what I could do and wanted it for himself. He lied to my face to get close and get me by surprise, well it didn't work, and good riddance!"

He dusted his hands. "A friend who turns out to be a psychopath was never a friend. All the memories you had of him were a false mask he used to blend in to society. The real him is scum that needs to die. If a friend of yours turns out to be such in the future, DO NOT hesitate. He is not your friend, he was never your friend. He was a liar biding his time to kill. Death is the punishment, and you are the hero to deal justice for what he has done. When the choice comes to you, I hope you make the right decision. There's a bunch more rules that I can't remember right now, so we'll talk about those another day. Good night, _hero._" He said the word with a dark chuckle, and left for the guest room.

Shirou didn't sleep that night.

**[Flashback End]**

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_When the choice comes to you, I hope you make the right decision._

The words rang in his head. Shinji had lied to him. He wasn't just a jerk, he was a murderer. He had ordered his servant to kill, and therefore it was his fault that people had died. He had to be stopped.

Shirou made his choice.

"Nero, take the servant. Shinji's _**mine.**_" He ordered.

Nero nodded, grinning. _'My master has hidden depths. Very interesting hidden depths.' _She leaped forward. "En garde, warrior!" Her bridal dress fluttered in the wind as she charged.

"Rider, defend me!" Shinji shrieked, turning tail and running away.

The now identified Rider moved forward, chains suddenly appearing in her grasp. With barely any movement from her arms, the coils moved, snakelike, striking out at Nero, the stakes at their ends seeking her heart.

The Empress of Rome swung Aestus Estus, and the incredibly heavy blade slammed into a chain, deflecting it with enough force to send it flying as far as its length would allow, almost making Rider lose her grip in the process.

The other chain she dodged, smiling all the while. "Those aren't a noble phantasm, Rider. Won't you show yours to me?"

Rider's response was to draw back her chains and let loose once more, twice as fast as before.

Nero chuckled, and stood her ground, moving Aestus Estus to block each blow, easily matching Rider's speed despite the weight. "If you won't Rider, I'll have to push you to do so. It's common courtesy of course." Her eyes narrowed, and prana channeled into the blade she herself had forged.

Aestus Estus, though a mortal's blade, was mighty. Nero considered herself an artist, the greatest if asked, and she considered smithing too an art, so she resolved to create a weapon to rival those of heroes past. The purest ore was mined, a hunk of metal as heavy as a boulder. She had dragged it herself to a volcano, where, enchanted by mages to resist heat, she had used the lava to heat the metal, using all the materials at hand to form the blade, hence its great size and weight.

She had gone back, and other smiths had praised her work as a master's. But it wasn't enough. Not just the royal mages, but the greatest from all corners of the empire and even foreigners from beyond were gathered to grant their most lethal, potent and _permanent _enchantments. By the end of the ritual, Aestus Estus could rival the ranks of Durandal in sheer lethality.

But it was not enough. Nero gathered the high priests of the great gods of Olympus, and asked for their blessings. They gave them, and Aestus Estus became a mighty _holy _blade. It still would not have been enough, if not for an incident at the last blessing.

Great Vulcan's, god of the forge, had been the last blessing she had asked for. Fitting, for this was an attempt at a magnificent piece of work in the art of forging. When the high priest had stepped forward to grant his blessing, he had stopped, then started convulsing, before glowing with power and suddenly moving and speaking in a voice not his own.

The god spoke then. Vulcan himself, possessing a human to communicate to them, praised her skill and daring, and granted not the blessing of a god's attendant, but the blessing of a full-blown god itself.

The combined mastery of its forging, the power of its enchantments, and the blessing of the gods turned Aestus Estus into an A-rank noble phantasm in sheer power if not in legend.

Nero was proud of that day, and no other weapon had she wielded than Aestus Estus after that.

Now, fighting an opponent who dared not to show her full power against her, she unleashed a fraction of Aestus Estus' wrath. **"Burn." **She spoke, in the dead language of ancient Rome.

Veins of fire spread throughout the blade, increasing in number until Nero held in her hands not a blade of metal, but a blade of molten lava.

Even with her blindfold, Rider looked shocked, and Nero laughed at her when her now-molten blade cut through the chains with nary any resistance.

Several lengths of severed chains now littered the ground, cut by Aestus Estus. Nero grinned. "_Now _will you show your noble phantasm?"

Rider dropped the now useless chains. "You are a powerful foe. Your master is lucky to have summoned you indeed. Very well. It's my turn." She leaped forward, and Nero stepped to the side as Rider passed her, turning around in time to see her grab one of the stakes and..._stab herself in the throat?_

She did, and Nero grinned when she saw the blood float in the air to turn into a summoning circle. It seemed her enemy had not been planning on suicide after all. While it would have been exhilarating to think that she terrified other servants to do that, it would have been boring.

From the blood stepped forth her steed, and Nero's grin widened when she identified the beast. "A Pegasus. You are a glorious hero indeed to ride such a mount."

Rider, for some reason, flinched at the statement, then wordlessly mounted the winged steed. She snapped the bridle and the horse flew into the air.

It hovered for a moment, hundreds of feet high, its wingbeats creating shockwaves that shook the trees, then dove downward towards her.

Nero leaped to the side, her A-rank agility ensuring that she was not hit, yet even its passing was enough to create winds that buffeted her and sent her rolling in a rough tumble. She stood up, her dress ruffled, but otherwise unharmed.

As the Pegasus dived downward for another charge, Nero stabbed Estus into the ground.

Rider, as she charged, felt danger, and swerved to the right to avoid Nero. It was a wise move.

The ground in front of Nero exploded, a fountain of molten lava erupting into a wall of burning rock that Rider would have crashed into had she continued.

It was just another of the abilities granted to Estus with Vulcan's blessing. The magi's enchantments made it a weapon that could cut through any armor and beast-flesh. The blessing of the priests made it anathema to undead and other unholy abominations. Vulcan's blessing however had given it command over fire, and as the god in the volcano, summoning lava was within its capabilities.

Granted, Nero rarely used it due to its great cost in prana, but since her master was the one supplying her and he was just _brimming _with prana, she needn't hold back.

The Pegasus flapped farther as Rider explored her choices.

Powerful as her mount was, it was not invincible. While she had never been splashed with lava before in her life, she doubted lava produced by a heroic spirit was any less potent. If anything, it was probably more powerful. But how was she to fight then?

She almost fell off her mount when prana started pouring into her. But how? Shinji couldn't produce...

Oh dear.

Rider chuckled as she realized what had happened.

Shinji...was dead. Killed by the other master. It seems she had been too preoccupied with this servant.

Well, that changed things.

She pulled on the reins once more, and the Pegasus turned and flew the opposite way, leaving the surprised Nero without an opponent. She would have to thank that master one day, if she could that is.

Nero, stuck on the ground, pouted. "Oh pooh. Why would she leave..." She blinked, then turned in the direction of her master. "Oh. Right." Even if she could not sense their prana flow, she had no doubt who had won. Shirou was just too powerful to be beaten by another master.

She ran, wondering how her master was feeling with his first kill.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shirou reinforced his legs as he ran after Shinji.

The murderer, for he was nothing else now in Shirou's eyes, was quite fast. No doubt adrenaline had something to do with it.

Shinji would probably be faster if he reinforced himself, but for some reason he didn't, as his speed was still well within human limits.

Nevertheless, Shirou caught up quite soon enough despite Shinji's headstart and original distance. "It's no use Shinji." He said loudly.

Shinji half-way turned, panting from exertion, a strange book in one hand. He gestured, and the darkness on the park _moved._

Shirou didn't stop running. "That won't work, _murderer._"

Around him, at least fifty Word-blades formed. They were basic, for he felt very little power in the shadows heading towards him.

They shot forward, fast as bullets, and apparently only six were needed to dissipate the shadows, if that. More formed, firing towards Shinji, and the purple-haired man barely avoided them when he jumped to the side.

Crawling back to his feet, Shinji fired several dozen of the shadows at him, before turning back to run.

Shirou frowned. Word-blades formed, but not the basic Cut-Pierce-Cut. The combination for this was Block-Defend-Protect. They were as much concepts of Sword as Cut and Pierce, but they were the other side of the coin, the side that saved.

They appeared around him, three dozen floating blades, each much wider and blockier than the offensive ones, and radiating no sense of danger, that defended him from all avenues of attack, and he was free to chase after Shinji and ignore the shadows.

A Word-blade appeared in his hand, containing three Words of Hunt, among other things. He threw it.

For Shinji, all he remembered from his terror-laden experience was a sudden pain in his legs, before he fell down, unable to run.

He blinked, then started screaming as he felt the **pain. **He couldn't feel anything below his knees, and looking down he found why: it had been cut off.

Footsteps.

He turned as far as he could, and saw Shirou Emiya slowly walking towards him.

He yelped, and started trying to crawl away with his hands, terror clouding his judgement, which would have told him that escape was impossible.

Then, Shirou stood in front of him.

To Shinji, he was nightmare given form. Dozens of floating blades danced around him, each made of prana, their glow illuminating him in a stark light that made him seem less human, less the friendly 'fake janitor' of the school, and more a magus, a true magus, whose kind was known to be murderous or apathetic to all other forms of life.

"P-please, Emiya..." Shinji whimpered.

Shirou reached into a pocket, drawing out a cylinder of diamond. A flow of prana, and it erupted into a glowing blade of power.

A mystic code.

Shinji had heard of them; specialized tools of magi, powerful and intrinsic to their personal arts. What did it say of Emiya Shirou and his magic, if his mystic code was a _goddamn__**magic**_ _**laser**__-__**CHAINSWORD**__?!_

"You killed, Shinji." Shirou spoke, his voice dead. "I never knew you were like this and...I don't want to do this, but..." For a moment, he shook, indecision plain in his features.

Shinji unleashed the shadows once more, thinking that he was vulnerable.

The defending blades moved, turning into blurs that blocked all the shadows. None of them even shattered.

Shinji gulped at his failure, and when he looked up, he wished he didn't, for the fury in Shirou's eyes were in a way, worse than even Zouken's presence.

"That settles it then. You really are irredeemable. You killed someone. You ordered your servant to kill people, and you _liked it. _I saw you. There's no turning back. May whatever powers that be have mercy on your soul, Shinji." The chainblade swung down, and Shinji didn't even have time to scream.

It cut him as much as it ripped him apart. The blade as a whole passed through his head and chest like it was air, but the chainteeth in the middle tore him apart and sent pieces of flesh flying.

Shirou barely felt the difference when the code bit into and _through _the cement.

He deactivated it, and surveyed the corpse before him.

Shinji had been cut in half. He would not say cleanly, for the cut parts looked mangled, as if they had been chewed on by wild animals. The ground itself had been slashed a foot after him before stopping. No doubt the authorities would wonder what kind of weapon could deal such damage.

He took a step backward, body shaking. He could have killed Shinji at range, a Word-blade to the heart, and it would have been over, a clean kill.

But he couldn't. They say the first death is the worst, and Shirou wanted to feel the worst when he made his, so that he would know what it meant when he took a life, and always make the decision to do so seriously. If it turned out the sight of life leaving someone's eyes made him feel good, then he would have turned his blades upon himself immediately.

And so, it was with both a sense of relief and horror that Shirou puked out the contents of his stomach when what he had done kicked in. He had killed, and it was horrible to him. It was horrible to him, therefore he was not a psychopath.

It was cold comfort.

He was only just starting to get to his feet when Nero landed beside him. He blinked, brain not quite up to date as to why a beautiful woman was with him.

She raised an eyebrow at him, then turned to the corpse. She nodded, then knelt and took him in her arms. "Shh, it's fine. The first one is always the worst. It'll get easier. It won't ever be easy if you're a good person, but it'll get easier."

Normally he would have blushed at the sudden intimate contact, but for now, with his brain still in shock, he accepted her warmth.

By the time the other Sabers arrived, he was more or less back to normal, though a bitter taste hung in his mouth that was not entirely from his vomit.

As they walked back home, Nero regaled them with tales of her battle, and Alter decided then and there that she had 'dibs' on him next time, as he seemed to be such a magnet for trouble that each time he went out he encountered a servant.

Strange, ever since the war started that _had _been happening.

That night, as lay in bed, he expected to be unable to sleep, that the memories would render him incapable of rest, and for an hour or two they did, but as arms suddenly wound around him, he turned his head to see a blushing Alter hugging him.

Her expression was neutral, but her face was red. "Only for tonight. I only give this to you now because it was your first. Now sleep, summoner. I..._we, _need you lucid." She whispered.

He blushed himself, and smiled. "Thank you." Indeed, sleep seemed suddenly all too fine an idea, and a familiar pleasant darkness crept into his thoughts.

"You tell _no one _about this." She told him, but he was asleep by then.

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**I hate my life. I really freaking HATE IT right now. I have Saturday classes, for **_**multiple **_**weeks. I have four projects due in one and a half weeks, periodical tests the week after that. And yet I still wrote this chapter. What have I done?**

**You guys better review.**

**Anyway, tell me what you think of the reveals. Does Nero's sword sound a bit too strong? Maybe, maybe not, considering how it was made. And honestly, it doesn't seem too far-fetched of an act for Nero if she had decided to make a weapon to rival legends.**

**Also, what you've just seen of Shirou is but a glimpse of his mind of steel. Bad ends await.**

**...**

**...**

**Joking. He's not MoS Shirou. He hesitates, didn't you see? He's a bit different in that certain issues had already been hypothetically decided with conversations with his master. Note that the master says that those are just the first three he remembers at this time.**

**This Shirou already knows/has decided what to do when certain situations arise. A friend who turns out to be a killer is one of those.**

**Review. It feeds me.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**And here's the next chapter, which introduces most of the new contenders for the grail war. Enjoy.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

For a normal human's standards, the house was huge.

It was built on a flat plain, a giant mansion that screamed opulence and history, with just the right amount of weathering from time to make it seem venerable rather than run-down.

For magi? It was just another noble's house.

Enforcer Jordan Lionstone, a blonde-haired blue-eyed giant of a man, clicked his tongue as several wolf-golems approached. They were much smaller than the eight-foot-tall lion golems with him, and so he was not bothered. He waved a hand, prana flowing out, and the golems deactivated, stopping mid-step for the ones walking. The running ones ended up crashing and skidding across the ground in an undignified heap.

It warmed his heart that the relatives of his that controlled this particular batch was probably twitching in frustration right now.

He continued walking, the two giant lions walking in-step beside him. More golems rose up from hidden routes or invisibility fields.

He grinned, and raised his hand once more.

The golems scattered, and in seconds, the field was clear. He laughed. The older magi were probably pissed at him right now. The younger ones? Well, half were already more or less brainwashed into the typical noble twit. The other half wanted to be just like him.

Their parents probably hated his guts. Not that he cared.

He reached the large double-doors. He waited for five seconds. No reaction.

He put his hand in one of the coat-pockets of the greatcoat he wore over his suit. "Hmm, I'm pretty sure I still have some semtex somewhere..."

The doors slammed open. He laughed once more. Magi were, to be honest, absolutely clueless with modern technology. Heck, even he was at most was as up-to-date as ten years ago, and that was sad. The fact that he was actually decades ahead of most magi was just even sadder. His family however was completely up-to-date with every kind of explosive, and it was all because of him. He considered it a personal achievement.

He was still laughing when he walked in. The main hall was filled to the brim with his family. Dozens of them, mostly adults his age or older. All of them hated his guts.

He glanced upwards at the top of the stairs. Some of the kids and teens waved at him or gave him a thumbs-up. His supporters. The ones who hated him would probably rat them out later, and they'd still worship him even after the punishments. He wondered what went on in their minds to be so dedicated.

He spread his arms in a grandiose gesture. "Salutations, my family." He said in a bored tone. Many of his family shifted nervously.

It was understandable, for Jordan Lionstone was a large man, even for a family whose males averaged at six feet. Jordan himself was three inches short of seven feet, and was bulky to boot, his entire frame rippling with muscles. Compared to the rest of his family, who, due to the fact that they rarely bothered to bulk up, looked stork-like with their great heights and spindly limbs, he was a veritable giant.

Of course, there were the eight-foot-tall stone lions.

One of the adults stepped forward, and Jordan's smile widened as he recognized him.

"Hello Jordan. What brings you here?" There was a nervous tick on Lord Lionstone's left eye. Understandable, considering that Jordan's last visit resulted in an explosion that left a twenty-meter wide crater on the family grounds.

They really should stop holding a grudge over that. He paid for the damages didn't he?

Jordan raised a hand, and savored the twitch that came over everyone in the room. Slowly, he put his other hand to the glove, and pulled it off.

Gasps.

"The Holy Grail War..."

"To have been chosen..."

"Our family's chance to rise! This is-"

Jordan smiled crookedly. "So, would anyone mind telling me what to do with this war ticket? A scrap between heroes wasn't exactly in my life's to-do list."

They were still in shock.

"But why him? Of all people..."

"The worst person in our family to have been chosen."

"Truly the Grail has a horrible sense of humor."

The enforcer scowled. He pulled something out of his pockets and threw it at the throng.

They reacted by instinct, squawking like birds and leaping away with no regard to their dignity. When the _yo-yo_ landed, everyone was at least ten feet away from it.

Silence, as the nobles processed what had happened. There was an embarrassed shuffling as they slowly stood up, trying to pretend they hadn't just been scared to death of a toy.

Jordan crossed his arms. "Enough yapping. Someone take this tattoo off of me. I've fought enough dead apostles to know when I'm going into a meat-grinder, and the only way to survive those is to not be there."

Lord Lionstone gaped at him. "Are you mad? To sacrifice such a chance for glory...that's madness!"

Jordan had a bright idea. "You do it then, father. Bring the Lionstone itself, that thing's a match for a servant if I say so myself. You should have a pretty good chance at..." He stopped when he noticed how pale his father had gotten. "Oh blimey, you've got to be shitting me. You're scared witless." He turned to the others, waving the marked hand. "Anyone?" They backed away at least four steps.

Lord Lionstone gulped. "Well, you see, there _have_ been stories..."

The enforcer glared at him, and the patriarch ceased talking. "All of you. I hate you all. You're all cowards." He cracked his knuckles, and the stone lions beside him growled, sounding more like a small avalanche.

His family didn't take this in stride. Prana flared in the air, awaiting their command, though there was fear in their eyes. It was an established fact that he had stockpiles of explosives in the house that they had yet to find. All it took was simple flare of prana at a certain wavelength and he could potentially blow them sky-high.

"I want access." Jordan declared.

His father blinked. "What?"

The enforcer scowled. "If I'm going to be forced to join in on this little punch-up, I'm not going to do it half-cocked. I want access to funds, artifacts, contacts, and favors. If I want to clear out the vaults, so be it. If I want to bring the Lionstone to the war, no one better give a yip about it."

Lord Lionstone shook with anger. "That's insane."

Jordan lifted the marked arm until it was parallel to the ground. One of the lions leaned over and put it between its teeth. "Say no and I'm cutting my arm off right now. I've heard enough to know that the contenders will hunt me down if need be unless I'm no longer a part of it."

Silence.

To be a magus was to walk with death, but right here, right now, seeing their long estranged relative willing to get his arm bitten off to avoid a hero war, it put to mind just how different the 'fighting' magi truly were to the 'scholar' types.

The leader rubbed his face tiredly. "Very well. You get access. But you better win, boy."

Jordan chuckled, blue eyes twinkling with dark mirth. "There is nothing certain in battle save for death. I'd be lucky to survive. Don't worry though, I wasn't actually planning on clearing out the vaults. That's too much stuff even for me. And honestly, I like my lions better." He rapped his knuckle on their stone hide. "I know them more, and that's something very important in battle, even if you don't know it."

The others just glared at him.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jordan sighed as his family watched him perform the summoning.. Admittedly, he could understand where they were coming from. It wasn't everyday one got the chance to witness the summoning of a heroic spirit.

"Lancelot maybe? The greatest knight of Camelot would be invincible."

"No, Merlin! His magic is unstoppable!"

"No no no. _King Arthur_. No one beats the king."

The enforcer rolled his eyes and placed a palm upon the circle. His prana flowed out, and a bright flash filled the room.

When the light lessened enough for visuals once more, Jordan could only stare at the result of his summoning. So did everyone else who had come to watch.

The servant didn't change from their collective wills, despite how much they wished it so.

His family had only one thought. _'...or he could summon __**that.'**_

The blonde enforcer sighed and looked at his father, who looked close to blowing a gasket. "Before anyone says anything, I totally didn't ask for this."

Standing in the still-glowing summoning circle was what appeared to be a white-haired teen an inch below five feet. She had several knives on her person, and was clothed in a horribly scandalous outfit of black leather which consisted of thigh-high boots, a sleeveless shirt two sizes too small, and a thong.

It was hardly the image of an epic hero. In fact, it looked like something out of those...what were those things called again? Ahh, yes. Hentai. Freaking Japanese.

His father twitched. "You...this..." He closed his eyes, and Jordan could _feel _the aneurysm forming. "Only you. Only you..."

Jordan shrugged. "Whatever." He turned to his...servant. God, that sounded weird in his head considering what she looked like. "So, nice to meet you. Name's Jordan Lionstone. And you would be?"

Slowly, her head tilted upwards to look him in the eye. He raised an eyebrow at what he saw there.

'_You're different.' _He thought. She looked like a human, but there was something strange about her, an alien psyche that lurked behind her childlike eyes. Most people would have shivered or felt alien fear from that knowledge, but he was an enforcer, and considering what he had gone through as part of that profession, he was alien in his own way, not to mention he had faced worse distortions.

The girl tilted her head to the side. It looked...cute, if he was to choose a word to describe her. "Assassin."

Jordan grinned. "And your name?"

She put her pinkie to her lips in thought. In his head, Jordan couldn't help but wonder what could make such a cute girl a heroic spirit. "Jackie."

More silence.

The enforcer palmed his face. _'Ah. So that's why.' _He had a horrible suspicion as to who she was. "You wouldn't by any chance have been a resident of Whitechapel when you were alive, wouldn't you?"

She nodded.

Jordan chuckled. "Well, this is certainly interesting. So Jack the Ripper is Jackie the Ripper." He stepped forward and, despite the apparent madness of the action, knelt until his head was of the same level as hers. "Well Jackie, I'm Jordan, and I guess I'll be your partner for this war. What say you?"

Slowly, she nodded, frostily.

He smirked. He stood up and patted the top of her head, eliciting a shocked look from everyone. At first she was still as a statue, but then she leaned into it, enjoying the contact. "Well then, how about we get you something to eat. I'm starving myself."

His father chose that time to react. "That's it? _That's it?! _You summon a murderer and now you're going to stuff yourself? Have you no-"

Jordan's snarky comeback was ruined by Jackie blinking out of his sight and grabbing his father's neck in a vice grip.

He blinked. He didn't even see her move. She was just _there. 'Fast. Very fast. Are all of them like this?'_

His father tried to struggle, but despite her build, she was _much _stronger than nearly anything he had ever seen before, beyond even most dead apostles he had faced. His father, whole body trying to gain respite, elicited not a millimeter of give to her grip.

Well, as much as he liked seeing his stuck-up family getting their arse handed to them, he couldn't just let her kill the leader. He stepped up to her and put a hand to her arm. "There there Jackie, that's enough. You can stop, we need him alive."

Thankfully, she dropped him, and Jordan rubbed her hair affectionately. Her hair was...soft. Very soft. "Good girl." She smiled. It was...cute. Just like nearly everything else she did.

Jordan looked at his gasping father. "What's done is done. I summoned a legendary serial killer. Deal with it. We're not getting any second chances, so stop complaining. It's not as if..." He turned and glared at the circle.

Though the glow had lessened to a tame level after Jackie's summoning, it had never truly blinked out, which was quite unusual for circles that were not designed to draw in ambient mana. In fact, it had still been draining from his reserves; it had just been unnoticeable until now, where it had suddenly increased to a _very_ noticeable level.

He growled and grabbed his left arm when _another set of command seals freaking formed on it._ "The hell?!" Faintly, as the glow reached blinding levels once more, he noticed Jackie step between him and whatever was about to be summoned...

Then the room exploded.

It was his experience with explosions that let him know ahead of time what was happening.

A feel in the air, a strange sucking feeling, as if gravity had shifted from down to whatever was in front of him, and a general feel of unstable prana.

A mental command had the two lions stand between him and Jackie, even as he, in what seemed to him as a fit of madness, grabbed Jackie and put himself between her and the detonation. He blamed her appearance for that. He knew intellectually that she was a servant, and so magnitudes tougher than any human, heck, she was probably literally tough as rock. But she looked like a young teenage girl, and he was hardwired to protect such frail-looking sprites.

The blast ruptured the floor and brought down the immediate ceiling, along with blowing away anything not nailed down that was lighter than an anvil.

Protected by his lions, Jordan was unharmed. They were magnitudes too heavy and tough to be blown away or destroyed by the detonation, nor be crushed by any of the debris that had fallen.

Thankfully, all of his family seemed to be alright, as only the adults had been within range of the falling ceiling, and they were either fast enough to get away, or had a spell to keep themselves safe. God knows things like this had happened often enough when he still lived here. They had experience with this kind of disaster.

But that wasn't what was important. What was important was the new figure that had appeared in the circle, standing in a spot of clear ground, none of the falling ceiling miraculously landing anywhere within a meter of him.

He was...not a tall man. Jordan was not a good judge of height at a glance due to his own advanced stature, but he could tell that the man was not of average height, though not quite short enough to be a midget.

It did nothing to detract from his presence though. The brown-haired blue-eyed male wore what appeared to be a combination between century-old officer's uniform and imperial regalia, with rows upon rows of medals lined up on his chest.

His posture was superb, his bearing confident in a way that made the Queen of the Clocktower, in the one time he had seen her at distance, seem absolutely common in comparison. The man exuded confidence like a star, as if nothing in the world could faze him, and there was no obstacle he could not overcome. The man was _sure _of himself in a way that spoke not merely of arrogance, but the knowledge of his own power, and that same power's invincibility. It was..._humbling_ being in the same room as him.

But then he recognized the face and Jordan couldn't help but palm his face once more. "Bollocks. What horrible luck I have today." A thought had the lions breaking position, revealing him to the not-so-mystery servant.

With as much confidence as he could muster, Jordan Lionstone stepped forward to meet the servant. "Did you _have _to make such an entrance? They're going to blame me for this for sure."

The servant narrowed his eyes at him. "You. I'd recognize that kind of face anywhere. You're _British. _I have been summoned by an Englishman. The fates truly have a sick sense of humor._" _He spat the title like a curse, and considering who he was, Jordan understood why.

The enforcer clapped his hands thrice. Despite his knowledge of his identity, despite what should have been distaste filling his heart, Jordan found himself overshadowed by the urge to just look at the figure and stand at attention. _'So...__**this **__is what charisma is.' _Out loud, "Magnificent observation. Yes, I'm British. Also, I know who you are. It's rather hard not to recognize you. Greetings, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France. You are but the second servant I have summoned."

The now identified Napoleon frowned. "Second? What madness do you speak of?"

Jackie stepped out from behind him, and Napoleon frowned. "By her pitifully weak presence...Assassin? I know not of how you have summoned two servants, but I am infinitely better than that child. I suggest you dispose of it at once and fight at my side, for no other has a greater chance of victory."

In Jordan's opinion, Napoleon was an insufferable, insulting, and arrogant cocksure little shit. And yet, despite his vehement words, Jordan had to put all his will into keeping himself from obeying and ordering Jackie to commit suicide. It was madness. It wasn't so much charisma as borderline mind-control, and Jordan feared for his future if just his _words _had such an effect on him. So...

"By the power of this command seal..." He intoned.

Napoleon smirked, and Jackie stared at Jordan in shock.

"...I order you, Napoleon Bonaparte..."

The Frenchman's eyes widened. "What?"

"...to never intentionally harm Jackie the Ripper, directly or indirectly, in both spirit and wording of this order, lest you kill yourself. My will be done." It was a wordy order, but one that was very specific and had very unfortunate consequences. Part of his second set of command seals disappeared, and he audibly heard Napoleon grinding his teeth together.

"You...you _dare?"_ He growled out.

Jordan nodded. "Yes. I dare. And if you kill me, you will end up far far away, hundreds of miles in fact, from the actual location of the war with no master to support you. Also, killing me will also take away Jackie's lifeline, so intentionally planning on killing me will activate that order too."

"Plebeian, you know not of the forces you reckon with." The Emperor of France threatened.

The enforcer nodded. "I probably don't, but you're kinda a dick, and I never did respond well to being threatened. Just be glad I didn't detonate the C4 under your feet instead." Then he took a bottle out of one of his pockets, reinforced himself to tear off the plug, and started chugging.

Napoleon stared at him. "What."

Jordan drank half in one go before answering. "I am British. I just summoned the most notorious serial killer of England and the Frenchman who got the closest to conquering my nation in the span of less than five minutes. I am not dealing with this sober...also, my family probably thinks I'm an utter embarrassment and is probably planning on shunning me forever after this. Isn't that right, dad?"

At the sidelines, Lord Lionstone angrily waved his fist at his son. The words 'biggest', 'ever', and 'disgrace' were repeated several times. 'Strangle you with my bare hands' also cropped up quite a bit.

Jordan shrugged. "Thought as much. I guess it won't make a difference if I ask for permission to raid the wine cellars then." He turned around, and started walking away, Jackie following a step behind him, still staring in shock at his benevolent actions towards her.

For a moment, Napoleon could only stare at the absurdity of it all, before shaking off his disbelief and running towards his master, as despicable as he was in his eyes. "Wait, you dolt!"

Jordan faced him. "Hmm?"

The servant stopped before him, eyes narrowed. "You would turn your back on me?"

The enforcer rolled his eyes. "I have little patience for today. Two days ago, I lived a good life. Perhaps it wasn't perfect, but it was nice enough. Now I have summoned two cultural villains, made myself shunned even more by my entire family, and am now bound to participate in a scrap that has an overwhelmingly high chance of killing me. Forgive me for not being level-headed."

Napoleon frowned. "Scrap? You would call the Holy Grail War a scrap?"

"It's fourteen people at the most. That's not nearly enough for an engagement." Jordan answered.

"We are heroes. Do not cheapen us so." The servant shot back.

The blonde chuckled. "And I've seen what happens when magi have the equivalent of a barroom brawl. It's like that, only larger, and deadlier, but in the end, it's not really so much a war as a death run with a lot of collateral damage."

Napoleon gritted his teeth. "You are insufferable."

Jordan smiled. "That I am."

For several moments, silence.

Napoleon sighed. "Perhaps we have gotten off on the wrong foot."

"We have. Very wrongly." The enforcer confirmed.

The Emperor of France made a sweeping bow. "I am Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, Servant Archer, and I have answered your summons. What is your command?"

Jordan handed him the bottle. "Drink."

Napoleon blinked. He looked at the bottle, then at Jordan, then back again. "Oh balderdash." He grabbed it chugged down the other half. "It tastes like piss."

The blonde nodded. "You don't drink for the taste, you drink to get drunk." He held out his hand. "Jordan Lionstone, Enforcer. Nice to meet you, mate."

Reluctantly, the servant shook hands with him. "You're not going to take down that order, aren't you?" Jordan shook his head. Napoleon scowled. "That is preposterous. What about that...child then? She is free to attack me at her leisure?"

Jordan glanced at Jackie. "No attacking the other servant." She nodded silently, and he turned back to Napoleon. "She'll be good."

"You're mad."

"And something's pulling my leg. I don't get things easy. I got two servants. That makes things easy. That doesn't add up." Jordan answered.

Napoleon frowned. "You're suspicious of something."

A nod. "I am. The war's in Japan. I was on the northern region of Africa when I got the command seals. Unless the grail couldn't find anyone deserving enough for half a world of searching, I was intentionally picked for the war. That sounds bad right there."

"When everything is going well, it's a trap." Napoleon quoted.

"Exactly."

Napoleon's eyes narrowed. "And what if you are, for once, lucky?"

"We'll deal with that when the times comes. Right now, I'm hungry. Who's up for a steak, a burger, fish and chips, and a lot of rootbeer?"

"Englishmen." The Frenchman muttered.

A chuckle. "Don't diss it until you try it, Frenchman."

Jackie raised a hand.

"Yes?"

"What's a steak?" she asked.

Silence.

Jordan cracked his knuckles. "Change of plans. We're stuffing you with meat until you're addicted to it."

As they marched out, Napoleon stared in thought at the back of his new master. _'Proud, but willing to make amends. Amiable, but ruthless when need be, and if what I've heard is true, a demolitions expert.' _"If you weren't British, I'd actually consider you adequate."

"Clam it. I don't like you not because you're French, but because you're insufferable."

Napoleon frowned. "You don't say."

Jordan laughed. "Mate, the guy who taught me how to blow shit up was French. If that doesn't get rid of someone's xenophobia, nothing will. Besides, I've met enough foreigners in my job to know race is too much of a factor in what you are." He pulled out another bottle from his coat and chugged a third, then handed it to Napoleon. "Booze?"

Napoleon stared at him. "You have balls, kid, I'll give you that. Still stupidly British though." Then he grabbed the bottle and gulped down the contents. He smiled. "Not that that's a bad thing sometimes..."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There was much staring in the pub.

At first it was because of the two unusually-dressed servants. Later on it was because of their appetite.

Jordan was glad it wasn't his money being used.

"Where do you two put it in?" He muttered numbly.

Napoleon shrugged, and continued devouring his food like a vacuum, all the while maintaining proper table manners worthy of the Queen's court.

Jackie just stabbed everything with her knife and jammed it in her mouth, before washing it away with an entire mug of rootbeer as tall as her head. Once again, she finished her serving. It was her fourth. "More."

Jordan turned to the cook, who had gone out to see the spectacle, and was gaping like a fish. "You heard the lady."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nighttime. Jordan had already left for Japan, along with several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment.

Lord Lionstone sighed. "Do you think he'll survive?"

His wife chuckled. "He's survived this long hunting monsters hasn't he?"

Another sigh. "He's just...damn. You know why. The greatest prodigy since our founder, and he ends up a pyromaniac who'd rather go around getting into punch-ups with vampires and sealing designates than extending our knowledge."

"You wanted to be an enforcer when you were younger didn't you?"

Lord Lionstone snorted. "I did. Then I found that I didn't have the nerves for it. He does, and he makes blasphemous but effective use of anything he can get his hands on."

"Then his enemies have more to watch out for...you were hoping for Lancelot weren't you?" There had been a phase in his childhood when he had researched every fact he could get on about the Arturian timeline. For some reason, he had taken a liking to Lancelot.

"...yes."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Luvia knelt before a complex circle dotted everywhichway with priceless gems.

She had been sitting there for hours now, chanting all the while, but she persevered. The heir of Edelfelt would settle for nothing less than the best servant.

"And so I ask of thee, answer my summons, and bring me victory!" She finished, and simultaneously, the dozens of gems used to power the circle detonated, releasing all their stored energy in what was no doubt a summoning of the highest order.

It also ended up blowing her away and crashing against the wall. "Ow. That wasn't supposed to happen."

Then _something _screamed from the smoke, and her chest tightened at the madness in it.

"**RAAARGH!" **The sound of steel meeting steel sounded in the room, along with stone shattering under horrendous force.

"Well, this is rather strange" A deep voice muttered calmly in the smoke, even as the clashing steel continued.

There was a grunt of effort, then the a loud clanging sound, and from the smoke came a smoky distorted figure of black steel plate, crashing against the wall beside her.

In an instant, it was back on its feet, and charged once more into the fray, screaming the wordless battle cry from before.

Its enemy stepped out from the rapidly-clearing smoke, and Luvia gasped.

Where the black knight was a figure of screaming ferocious madness, the cloaked, gray-armored knight was one of calm poise and lethality. Runemarked plate covered his body save for his chest and head, from which pale green eyes stared out with focused intensity. In one hand he held a greatsword as long as he was tall, a weapon that just by sight alone proclaimed its status as an overwhelmingly powerful noble phantasm.

The black knight charged, absently grabbing pieces of jagged debris that became covered in his inky black prana, wielding them like short swords, and the gray knight proceeded to defend himself.

The black knight was faster. _Much _faster, but the gray knight was a hero too, and skill came with it. He blocked every attack that came towards him, perhaps not perfectly, but effectively. HIs return swipe sent the black knight rolling away to avoid getting cut in half. Even in his maddened state he recognized the power of that blade.

Luvia stared. "T-two?"

"Three actually."

She blinked, then looked beside her, where an aged bearded man in a grand blue cloak holding a gnarled staff long than he was tall winked at her. It would have been reassuring, if his eyes weren't literal pits of fire. "Greetings. I'm servant caster. Lancelot over there is apparently a Berserker. The other guy? I don't recognize him, but he's a Saber probably."

"What." Dull surprise. These last few minutes were too crazy even for a magus.

Caster chuckled. He stepped forward, and tapped the ground with his staff.

Prana flared, and Luvia gasped as magecraft that modern magi could only dream of was cast with but a thought.

A chunk of rock as large as a chair tore itself out of the ground. Caster pointed it at the Saber, then a pulse of magic had it launching towards him at a speed that not even the warrior could contend against.

It didn't so much slam into him as _push_ him. It pushed him hard, very hard, punching the Saber through dozens of walls and quite possibly out of the mansion altogether.

Then he pointed his staff at Berserker, and filaments of light formed from nowhere, snaking around the servant until he was covered from the neck down in glowing threads. He continued struggling, and numerous strands had to be replaced as he broke more and more.

Beads of sweat formed on Caster's brow as he struggled to contain the mad servant. "Killing? Easy. Binding? Not so much. Especially when the target can shatter steel with his punches." He approached Berserker. "Snap out of it." His staff glowed, and he slammed it down hard on the struggling servant's skull.

A corona of lightning formed upon impact, and Berserker screamed for an instant before falling silent. The threads disappeared, and the black knight fell bonelessly to the ground.

"D-Did you kill him?" Luvia gasped.

Caster chuckled. "No, just knocked him out. I'm surprised it worked though. Any other class and I wouldn't have gotten through his magic resistance. It was still damn hard." He turned around, and the smile dropped when he found the gray knight in front of him. "Oh bugger me."

The gray knight cracked his neck, first to the left, then to the side. "For the record, I'm a Rider."

Caster looked at his oversized sword. "You don't look it."

"Any last words?" The now-identified Rider asked.

"Stop."

The two turned, and found Luvia glaring at them heatedly, the three sets of command seals on her right arm glowing heatedly. "Don't make me waste these. I don't know how I summoned three servants, but I am making use of that for as much as I possibly can. I am your master, and you will not fight, and you will work together, for as long as I tell you to, and I'm telling you to do that _right now._"

Rider shrugged, sheathing his sword and taking a step back. "As you command."

Caster laughed. "My master has steel in her spine. Very talented too, to have summoned such prominent heroes. Isn't that right, Siegfried of the Norse?"

Rider's eyes narrowed, but he didn't answer.

Another laugh. "Don't be surprised. I modeled Caliburn after that blade of yours after all. I made it smaller though. My king isn't quite as fond of two-handers as your kind."

Luvia stared. "Merlin. I summoned Merlin. And Siegfried." She looked at the downed Lancelot. "And Lancelot." She paused. "...I am awesome."

Merlin turned to the berserker. "Speaking of which..." He tapped him with his staff, and in a sudden movement, Lancelot sprang to his feet, aiming to choke the life out of Merlin with his bare hands.

But the wizard would have none of that. Prana flowed through his body, to the point that the energy was visible to the naked eye. His hand snapped upwards, backhanding Lancelot with enough force to dent the enchanted steel and send him crashing to the ground.

The wizard's eyes literally burned, for they were two pits of hellfire, a gift from his father's lineage. They say he has his father's eyes, and the black knight, even in his madness, flinched at the sight. "Get rid of that Lancelot, right now. I want to talk to you sane." Lancelot backed away slowly. Merlin growled. "NOW!"

Lancelot shuddered, then the black aura disappeared, and he stood up from the animalistic crouch he had, his bloodlust disappearing. He took off his helmet, and his handsome face was streaked with sadness and shame as he turned his head to the side, unable to look the Caster in the eyes. "Y-yes?"

"That is not the way a Knight of the Rounds should act." Merlin scolded.

Lancelot flinched. "I am no longer a knight, not after what I have-"

Caster grabbed him by the cheeks and forced his head close to his. "You are a knight. You have always been a knight. Yes, it was wrong of you and Guinevere to romance each other behind our king's back, but in the end, I can understand why you did it, and even more, when our king truly needed you, you came to help. It was unfortunate that Gawain barred your way, for it could have changed everything, but that is his sin, not yours. What is currently happening now however is the grail war, a war for a wish. If you truly wish to repent, then win you damned fool. Win, and change everything for the better. Got that?"

Lancelot stared at him, his expression having changed from shamed, to insulted, to abashed, then now, to steely determination as he realized what was at stake. "Yes. I understand."

The Norse hero clapped, and the two looked at him. "Touching scene. But you're forgetting the fact that only one wish is allowed."

The Caster shrugged, then grinned. "I don't have one as I don't regret anything, so I don't really care. What about you then?" Magic crackled across his frame, and the threat of violence filled the room once more.

Luvia blasted a gandr at the three of them. Merlin absently dispelled his, while the other two were unaffected. It caught their attention though.

"No fighting amongst yourselves. I'm not wasting a chance for an easy win because you three are too trigger-happy. We beat all the others first _then _we can discuss how we figure out who gets the winner."

The white-haired warrior shrugged. "To be honest, I really just want to live once more, to have a new chance at life, this time without any prophecies and strings of fate to ruin things."

Caster chuckled. "Oh, I can do that for you."

The warrior stared.

The mage smiled. "Boy, I made Caliburn with these very hands. A new body fit for a hero wouldn't be all that hard to make, especially with humans and their technology these days. You have no idea how hard it was to create a humonculus back then with all the compounds needed, but with science today! Hah!" The smile widened. "Besides, I don't think you wanted to go back to your old life since the prophecies would be active. You want a new one, and a new one I can provide. That good enough for you, boy?"

Siegfried let out a deep breath "Truly?"

Merlin nodded. "Truly."

Siegfried raised Gram, and the dragon-slaying sword gleamed. "Then I will fight proudly by your side for that prize."

Merlin turned to Luvia. "Hear that? You get to keep all three of us! Lucky you have me, eh? Eh? Eh? Eh?" He said, each successive 'eh' followed by jabbing his elbow at her.

Merlin was quite surprised to suddenly get suplexed by the blonde. There was only so much frustration and madness a girl could take for a day, and Merlin was pushing it.

Thankfully, being a servant, he was physically unharmed. His pride was something else altogether though.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Waver Velvet nodded as he studied the circle. Perfect.

He looked at the catalyst in his hand, the strip of cloth from Rider's cape. He placed it in the middle and began chanting.

He knew that Iskander wouldn't recognize him. The servant that appeared would be nothing more than a copy of the original in the throne, but that wouldn't stop him.

He was the last of his king's men, and Iskander's wishes were his wishes. Iskander wished to fight and win the grail war. So Waver Velvet would dive right into that den of madness once again, beside his king, where his place should be.

The summoning finished, and Waver beheld once more the gigantic figure of the King of Conquerors, tears unabashedly running down his cheeks at the sight. He knelt, keeping his head facing the ground in respect. "I thank you coming forth, King of Conquerors. I am your...master, Waver Velvet." It was hard to say that word at his liege, but that would change soon enough. "It will be an honor to fight alongside you."

Silence.

Waver gulped. Had he said something wrong? Perhaps he shouldn't have been too formal. Rider did say he hated those things.

Rider spoke, and Waver froze at the words.

"Ianioi Hetairoi is an evolving noble phantasm. It contains within it all my comrades, their thoughts and feelings known to me at all times, beyond even the limitations of the throne of heroes. After all we went through, do you honestly think you don't qualify?" Rider, HIS Rider, stated.

Waver looked up.

Rider smiled, and proceeded to grab him in a bear hug. "Waver! Hah! You've sure grown haven't you! How has it been when I was gone?"

Waver could only stare, and cry, as once again he found himself in the presence of his greatest friend.

He hiccupped. "Fine." He wondered what to say. "I'm a Lord now." He added.

Rider laughed boisterously. "They've acknowledged you lad? Glorious!" He looked to the side, and blinked at the steel maid. "Hey, isn't that your old teacher's...?"

Waver chuckled. "Ahh, yes. It is. I inherited it when I ascended to the status of a lord. As you can see, I...modified it a bit."

Volumen Hydragynum curtsied.

Rider gave another laugh. "Hah! To not only ascend to a high status, but to acquire that which your superior once held, now that's conquering! We have much to catch up to!"

Waver nodded. "That we do."

Someone spoke. "As touching as this is, I have no idea what it's about. Would someone mind explaining to me why I'm here?"

Rider dropped Waver and turned on the newcomer, a stocky, well-muscled Asian in heavy armor. "Who would you be?"

The Asian grinned. "Since your name has already been revealed, I shall do the same." He held out his arms to the side in a flaring gesture, the cloak fluttering with the movement. "I am Servant Archer, the Scourge of God, Conqueror of Asia. I am Temujin, Genghis Khan, the Lord of the Mongols! What say you, Alexander the Conqueror?"

Iskander grinned, and reality flickered, glimpses of a sand-blasted plain appearing for instants. "I'm saying that's a lot of words, but you've yet to prove anything." He placed his hand on his sword's handle.

Genghis Khan grinned the same way, and the world changed for an instant. Waver spotted an endless grassy tundra for a second, along with an entire army of horsemen before reality reasserted itself. "I believe the term you should have said is: you and what army? Because The Grand Horde would have something to say to you about that..."

Iskander blinked. "How?"

The Khan crossed his arms over his chest in pride. "Before me, we were a scattered people. Great in numbers, but scattered." His face darkened. "Foreigners took advantage of that fact. Because we chose not to live in cities, in _civilization" _He spit the words out like a curse "we were considered barbarians despite our eloquence, our skill, our culture. So I gathered all my people. I made them one. I made us **strong. **I destroyed the cycle of discrimination and pointless massacres upon my people, for I loved them as my sons, my daughters, my children."

The pride in his face resurfaced. "And I am proud to say that they love me back." He looked at Iskander. "It is this love that makes them stand beside me even now, a thought away from touch. Into hell's gates they will march with me, for I have never led them astray. What about you? What makes your soldiers stand by your side even now?"

Iskander breathed deeply after a pause. "Because they are not my soldiers. They are my friends. They joined me of their own free will, and I am proud to have them beside me. Throughout my legendary conquests our bond only grew deeper, until to Tartarus and back they would march with me without hesitation, until that bond grew enough to shatter the bonds of death. THAT is what makes them stand by my side."

Silence, as the two great conquerors looked grimly at each other, judging each other's words.

Genghis Khan smiled. "You are a great man. It will be an honor to fight beside you."

Iskander laughed. "And I to you!"

The Mongol lord nodded. "But after..."

Iskander clapped the Khan on the back. "We'll figure out whose army is the best! But that's after we beat everyone else! For now, it's time to drink, to celebrate the start of a new grail war!"

Waver stared. Oh god, there's two of them?!

He couldn't argue about the feeling of utter joy in his heart though...

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Bazett breathed deeply as she looked at the summoning circle. "You sure this will work?"

Lancer shrugged. "It has to. No way I'm beating those four, even if I activate a warp spasm." He had helped with circle with his own considerable knowledge of runes. Hopefully, that would help.

Without further ado, Bazett poured her mana into the circle, chanting all the while. When it finally finished, the resulting flash blinded her.

She blinked away the spots, and found herself facing a tall red-haired woman in heavy steel armor.

The servant grinned. "I am Servant Caster. I have answered your summons."

Bazett blinked. "Caster?" The woman wore armor, _armor, _and had numerous weapons slung all over her body. This was a _caster?_

"Oh shit." Lancer cursed.

She turned, and found Cu Chulainn staring at Caster in terror. "Fuck. Not you."

The female servant grinned. "An enemy already? And the hound of Ulster too! I might actually die this time! Defend yourself, servant!" She drew a greatsword as long as she was tall and leaped forward, _much _faster than a Caster had any right to be.

She slammed into Lancer with great skill, every movement precise and deadly and designed to inflict the highest damage with whatever force she put into it.

It was...amazing.

Whatever this woman was, she had been summoned as Caster, and so must have been reduced not just in stats, but also in skill. And yet, she retained enough that Lancer, despite his incredible advantage in both speed and strength was actually _having difficulty. _

Granted, he was avoiding wounding Caster seeing as this was supposed to be their ally, so his unfamiliarity towards defending had to be taken into consideration.

Lancer swiped his lance with overwhelming speed, at least a dozen strikes each second, the maneuver more to distract than damage, and Caster blocked them all with precise limited motions of her sword. She even found enough time to make her own counterattacks. "Is that all? I taught you better than this!"

Then she started forming runes.

She had leaped away, giving ground for the first time in the battle, and as she did so, her free hand blurred as it formed dozens of runes in midair in the time it took to land. When she did land, she leaped forward at once, and the runes surrounding her spat elemental fury at Lancer.

The spearman didn't bother countering with his own runes. He just dodged. An incredibly focused beam of fire, more like a laser than anything else, seared through a dozen trees. Literal miniature tornadoes formed from precise applications of runes, buffeting Lancer and messing up his evasion. Bullets of water gored holes through solid stone, while a whirling dust cloud that choked the air from his lungs tried to suffocate him.

Bazett couldn't let this go on. She leaped forward, diving between Lancer and Caster. "Stop!" She fought to breath as the dust cloud tried to choke her.

Faintly, she saw Caster's hand flicker, forming a combination, and a stiff wind blew away the dust cloud. "What are you doing? Can't you see I'm trying to fight a servant here? Move out of the way before he stabs you."

Bazett frowned. "No he won't." She turned around. "Lanc-" She blinked. Caster had, with that brief combination, created a dome of rock to cover Lancer. "The hell." This wasn't just skill. This was...she didn't have a word for it. Runes weren't designed for quick and dirty battle-casting, but this woman, this servant, was using them at a level that far outstripped even the magi of old. It was unreal.

She shook her head. "No. Stop it. He's _my _servant. We summoned you."

Lancer broke through the dome, landing beside her. "Yeah. What she said." He confirmed.

Caster stabbed her sword onto the ground. "Do tell. I'm sure this is an interesting story."

"Scathach, someone summoned four Sabers." Lancer answered.

Silence.

The now-identified Scathach raised an eyebrow. "Well now, that _is _something. How?"

Bazett stared. Scathach? She had summoned _Scathach_? Cu Chulainn's own master? The slayer of gods and immortal killer herself? _That _Scathach? She couldn't help but thank her luck in summoning such a powerhouse. It also explained her overwhelming skill and power.

Lancer tsked. "You should have been there. The kid had prana like you wouldn't believe. Dozens of times more than the magi of this time. He'd fit in our age any day. Whatever the case, he pulled out four full-powered servants out of the grail. I..." He gulped, unwilling to admit the incident. "...I barely escaped alive."

Scathach crossed her arms. "How powerful exactly?"

Bazett spoke up. "A master summoned a berserk Hercules. The four killed him eight times, and only half of them used their noble phantasm."

Scathach started laughing. "Hah! That is rich!" She wiped a tear from her eye and sheathed her weapon. "Very well. I will fight by your side. If nothing else, this will be an interesting endeavor." She clapped her hands. "Right. Where is our base of operations? It better have a bed. I have an itch that needs scratching."

Bazett blinked. "Uhh, what?" She glanced at Lancer, and noted the red tinge on his face.

"Is now really the time?" He said.

Scathach walked up to him and grabbed the Irishman by the throat. "Hound, I have not had any in centuries. Yes, _now _**is **the time." He gulped.

The Irish enforcer turned scarlet as she realized what she was talking about. _'friendship of her thighs indeed.' _"What?! B-But..."

Scathach glanced at her and snorted. "If you wish to join, girl, I mind not, but I get first dibs. You are not stopping me."

It was an awkward night for Bazett.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The ancient looked at the circle. In his hands were a lock of ancient hair and a strip of faded brown cloth.

Which one? Both were genuine, but he didn't know which would be better.

He threw them both at the circle. "Let fate choose then. Summon." He Said, and the circle flashed.

In an instant, two figures knelt before him.

"Servant Caster/Berserker, I have answered your call." They said at the same time, before looking at each other in shock.

"Greetings."

They looked at the speaker, and in another instant, they were standing and glaring at the abomination in front of them.

The cloaked man pointed his staff at the ancient. "YOU! How dare you!"

The ancient nodded. "You know why, Moses."

The named Moses flinched. "If I could, I'd..."

"You'd kill me, and I'd welcome your attempt with open arms. You cannot, therefore I do not care." The abomination answered.

The other servant, an incredibly muscled, hirsute man with extremely long hair tied with rawhide, cracked his knuckles. "I could-"

The ancient shook his head. "No Samson. It won't work. I've been dismembered before, and it doesn't come close." He looked at the two. "You know why I'm joining. If a collection of humanity's greatest heroes and an absolute wish cannot end me, what will? It is in your best interests to help me. You will have to, for you cannot help but claim this prize for the glory of Yahweh."

Moses tapped the ground with his staff. "You are not a magus. You do not have circuits to supply us with prana."

The abomination tilted his head to the side, then Spoke. "Mana in the air, Support and Sustain these Spirits."

The two froze, then sighed.

Moses gripped his staff tighter. "Very well. It seems you CAN manage." He frowned. "Know that I will expend no effort to save or keep you from danger."

Samson crossed his arms. "As will I."

The ancient being nodded. "I won't have it any other way." He turned around and started walking away. "Follow me. The location of the war is half a world away. Modern marvels will have us there in a day. Come."

The two looked at each.

"There can only be one." Samson said.

Moses nodded. "But for the glory of Yahweh, it shall be a hero of his creed that will stand last. A truce, until we are but the last to remain."

Samson shook hands with the prophet, and they followed the murderer.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the shadows of the shrine, two servants conversed.

"Four Sabers. I wouldn't have believed it with just that image, but your fear, oh your fear. That's proof." The heavily-armored Chinese muttered.

The witch of Colchis scowled. "I have told you my wish. I care not for this war, only for my love, and I need not the grail for it. Will you side with me then?"

The weapon in the warrior's hands clicked and changed form. "Yes. In light of this revelation, I find that a wise choice. Four Sabers. That's enough servants that some won't need to die for a wish. Very well, we shall claim victory. With the power of the grail I shall conquer the world, but I am to leave you and your man's family alone."

The contract between them glowed, and the Chinese laughed as he walked out of the room. "You! Swordsman! I wish to taste your steel once more. Defend yourself!" He shouted at the gate-guardian.

Outside, Assassin's happy chuckle could be heard. "As you wish. It is an honor to spar with such an established hero as yourself."

"Less talking, more fighting!" The sound of stone shattering was heard. Truly, the Lancer's strength was tremendous. Matched with his speed, he was a mighty opponent. Hopefully mighty enough.

Medea sighed and rubbed her temples. "This is too troublesome."

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**Yeah, I totally just did that.**

**Things are heating up. Heating up FAST. And it'll be awesome.**

**Those aren't the only servants coming out though. Sakura, the teacher, and Rin have yet to summon theirs. You're going to be absolutely shocked when you meet the buggers.**

**Also, kudos to the guy who recognizes Medea's mystery Lancer. Hint: He's an actual canon servant, just not a Lancer.**

**Shirou: Arturia, Alter, Lily, Nero**

**Luvia: Siegfried, Lancelot, Merlin**

**Ancient: Moses, Samson**

**Bazett: Cu Chulainn, Scathach**

**Ilya: Hercules, Hector, Odysseus**

**Waver Velvet: Iskander, Temujin/Genghis Khan**

**Jordan Lionstone: Napoleon Bonaparte, Jackie the Ripper**


	8. Chapter 8

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Copycat Hassan is awesome here.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Napoleon, clad in an expensive suit, grinned as he watched the miles of land go by quickly under the speed of the plane. "My my, this is certainly interesting. What wonders the world has made since my time."

Beside him, Jackie, wearing a yellow sundress they had bought in a clothing store, stared out of the same window in silent awe.

Jordan chuckled. "Incredible, isn't it? Once, flying would have been a true magic. Now, humans all over use it. As proud as I am as a mage, even I have to admit science has its merits." He studied his servants. "It's strange you know. I was expecting more of a drain, considering I have two servants and I'm only above average in prana levels."

Napoleon scoffed. "One is an assassin. They require comparably little." He placed a hand on his chin. "Still, you are right. That is unusual. Perhaps there really is more to this grail war than the others." He murmured.

Then Jordan decided to point out something that had been bothering him the entire time. "Another thing: you're too short."

Silence.

Slowly, Napoleon's face turned to his. "Say again?" He asked with a voice cold as the arctic.

Jordan held back the urge to gulp. "You're too short. You're supposed to be taller than that. I know my facts, and you were actually tall for your time, which is a bit above average for today. You're below average. Why?"

Napoleon palmed his face and sighed tiredly. "Legends shape the servant. Apparently, enough people know a certain 'fact' that it has actually affected my physical form." He whispered at the end. "At least I got a phantasm out of it."

Jordan heard it, barely. "Really? What does it do?"

The King of France glared at him, then leaned in and whispered the answer before turning back to the window. "There. Question answered. Conversation is over."

Jordan stared at him. "Damn." He resisted the mad giggle in his throat. He had a feeling Napoleon would blast him to kingdom come if he did. So instead, "That amuses me."

The armrest crumpled in Napoleon's grip, and Jordan wisely shut up for the rest of the trip to Fuyuki.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"I find this amusing." Merlin said.

Siegfried frowned. "Why so?"

"Because Lancelot is giggling." The wizard answered. "Also, our master is going to puke again."

"I'm going to do a barrel roll!" Lancelot declared, perhaps enjoying the feeling of piloting a flying machine _way _too much.

"Wait! No! Don't! Not agaaaaain!" Luvia shouted, but it was in vain.

Lancelot, currently piloting the private jet Luvia's family had bought, proceeded to do exactly as he said.

The jet spun and dived, performing a perfect barrel roll complete with multiple three hundred and sixty degree rotations. At full speed. Any other jet would have buckled under the strain he was putting it in, but most jets weren't empowered by a noble phantasm that turned said jet into a noble phantasm.

"He's enjoying this. I'm glad." Merlin said, smiling, not at all bothered by the insane movements. He glanced at Siegfried. "Lancelot's the pilot, and I'm used to high-speed air movements. What about you?"

"My horse can fly." Siegfried answered.

"Ahh." Absently, Merlin handed a paper bag to Luvia, who went and barfed into the container. "You know, I'm really surprised our master can properly supply us all. I admit, she has very high prana levels for this age, but to be able to keep us all from being in power-saving mode...that's rather impressive. Or suspicious."

Siegfried glanced at Merlin. "Is there something I should know?"

"They are suspicions for now, but just in case, be on your toes when we get there. I have a feeling this war isn't going to be the easy win we all have in mind." The mage of Camelot answered seriously.

Then Lancelot tried to do even more impressive tricks upside down, and it was all forgotten under the entertainment of the act.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In retrospect, going into a bulk-passenger plane with two of history's greatest conquerors was not one of Waver's best ideas.

"And they got this completely wrong! What wrong tactical planning? Everything was perfect!" Temujin declared.

Very much not a good idea.

"You still didn't even manage to set one foot on their land." Iskander said.

At least if he had hired a private jet instead, he wouldn't have to suffer all the strange looks everyone was giving him for sitting next to the two heroes.

"I'm telling you, someone out there was out to get me. Two freak storms. Two! It was like a god just went and decided 'nope. That's enough. This place is off limits.' And Bam! Storm! If I managed to land a fourth of my forces there, I would have had that country. Surely." The Lord of the Mongols muttered, miffed.

Iskander laughed. "Worry not! Even heroes have their bad days. Why, I remember the trip to India! Horrible time. So much marshland and mud! Sometimes we were up to our knees in it!" Considering Iskander's height, his knees were probably more on the level of other people's waists, so that was a lot of mud.

The two conquerors were sitting next to each other, each one holding a book about their exploits with a detailed atlas and world map splayed in front of them.

They had been sharing stories, arguing against facts in their books, and comparing territories conquered since the start of the trip. Very loudly in fact. It was if they had no inside voice.

Granted, they were generals in a time where orders were given by shouting as loudly as you can, so it was understandable in way.

It was still troublesome and embarrassing for him.

Waver sighed when a stewardess with a food trolley reached them, trying in vain to be as polite as possible. "What would your...acquaintances like, sir?"

He glanced at them. They were still engaged in conversation and didn't seem to notice the stewardess. "You know what, don't bother. They'll be at this the entire time. Not even food will stop them."

Several passengers groaned at this fact.

Well, there went his nap.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_Four magnificent swords._

_This time, his sight pierced deep into their history almost instantly, and their lives became open to him._

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Perfect. She had to be perfect. Her kingdom and all it held depended on her actions.

Every decision had to be right, every tactic sublime, every battle an overwhelming victory.

She managed. With great effort she managed, but in doing so, she killed the woman she once was.

Then civil war came. Betrayal after betrayal. Her most trusted knight, her best friend, dalliancing behind her back. Her half-sister and her son, turning her own kingdom upon her.

And the wizard. Oh, the wizard. Where had he gone...?

Must she face this all alone?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Too many. Too many had died from the invaders.

Year after year she would sally out to defend her realm, but always before the opening strike. They always struck first, trying to conquer her people again and again in their greed.

Enough was enough. Perhaps more would die from this decision, but in the end, no man of Britain would die running from armed barbarians. From this day forward they would die standing, with a sword in their hands and a song on their lips.

The invaders would _burn. _And all who stood against her would burn with them.

And Europe shook with the rage of the Tyrant of Knights.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Too hard. She could not uphold the ideal. She was not perfect. She was great, but not perfect. She could not carry this burden alone, and as long as she hid her true gender, she could not trust herself to be more than acquaintances with her knights. The loneliness was too hard. She was not an island.

So she dropped the act. When a third of her knights and people turned their back on her, she almost cried. But those that remained, she would be forever grateful to them. They supported her unfailingly from that point forward, she herself vowed never to fail her friends.

Yes. Friends. What a wonderful word. She had friends.

It would be an arduous task to claim all of Britain, but with steel and will, she would not fail.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

From birth she was but a tool for her mother.

Plots and plans. Assassinations and devious dealings. Those were the tools of her mother. The results of her mother's plans ended up with her becoming the heir to the throne, a fact that only cemented her relatives' dislike of her. In that, she loved the people of Rome more than her own relatives.

She tried so hard to please the world when she ascended as empress. She was brilliant, everyone said so, and she showed it. Were her policies and reforms not magnificent, if even other countries praised her own skills? Why did the senate resist so much?

And her mother, oh her mother. All she ever did was for her own self-interest. In the end, she had to die. But her mother had the last laugh. She had been given poison and its antidote since birth, and her mother took the antidote with her to the grave.

Then, madness came upon her, and all she ever loved was sent to ruin.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shirou woke up.

He blinked. _'Those memories...so that's their lives?' _He looked to the side, and found that while everyone else was still asleep, they had all somehow gotten entwined together into a tangle of limbs.

Then they woke up.

There was no sound as the four sabers studied the situation.

Saber sighed. "This is getting ridiculous." Then she twitched. "Nero, your leg's between my thighs."

"That it is." Nero admitted.

...

"Are you not going to remove it?" Saber asked.

The Empress of Rome grinned. "I find the position strangely comfortable."

Saber growled. "I doubt everyone else does."

Shirou gulped. "You know, I can't exactly cook breakfast if I can't stand up."

Nero pouted. "Point taken." She rolled to the side, and the others let go of him. With as much speed as he could muster, Shirou ran out of the room. He didn't want to stay too long there. He had a bad feeling about it.

Lily looked at Alter. "So, I noticed you were holding him pretty tightly."

Alter looked blandly at her. "So was everyone else."

The Queen of Knights giggled. "All four of your limbs were on him."

"I move a lot when asleep." Alter answered, straight-faced.

"Right..."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shirou sighed as he walked into the kitchen to prepare the food. "I'm starting to regret not using a command seal to keep them away."

It was halfway through cooking the dishes that Rin came in. "I heard you eliminated one of the masters last night."

He froze, memories of what he had done coming back full force. Woodenly, he turned to Rin, smiling weakly. "Morning, Rin."

Leaning against the doorway, she crossed her arms. "The body's already been found, you know. I didn't think the Matou would bother to join this time considering how much they've been stagnating. Shinji certainly didn't feel like a magus to me."

Shirou frowned as he went back to cooking. "Well, he apparently was, if those shadow spells he used was any indication. He wasn't nice like you, either. He _enjoyed _ordering his servant to kill people. I couldn't let him live." His hands shook as he manipulated the tools.

"In a way, it was understandable. He probably wasn't much of a magus either so he had to resort to draining others for energy to keep his servant in shape."

Shirou's grip on a pan tightened. "That doesn't make it right. This war should be fought by magi with enough prana to not need to drain others to sustain their servant. The servants should fight servants, and innocents should be kept out of the crossfire. What he did was wrong. I couldn't allow him to continue."

Rin nodded. "That's a sound logic. I agree myself." _'But the world doesn't always work by what's right.' "_By the way, what happened to his servant?"

Shirou blinked. "Oh. She retreated when her master died."

The twin-tailed girl shrugged. "Not important I guess. Without a master, she'll fade away quickly."

The sword incarnation sighed. "Good to know I guess." Then he noticed what had been bothering him since he got here. "Wait, where's Sakura?"

"What do you think?"

He closed his eyes and slumped. "Right. She...damn." _'Stupid. How could I forget about her? Shinji...was her brother.'_

Rin shook her head. "Don't beat yourself up over that. He went into this knowing the risks full well. Any other master would have killed him too."

Their conversation was cut off when Taiga proceeded to barge in and proclaim her need for food.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sakura hadn't gone to school either.

Taiga, upon learning of the reason, had all but ordered him to go to her house and cheer her up, not that he needed the encouragement. He was already planning on doing so anyway.

So here he was, standing in front of the Matou property with Nero and Saber at his side. Alter and Lily were exploring the city and hadn't met him on the way here. Not that he needed any more of them. No other master had more than one servant, and Nero and Saber were enough protection weren't they?

That said, no one was quite expecting a cloaked, black-haired female servant to phase out of the house with speed comparable to Lily, sprout a withered, crimson hand from her back, and place said hand on his chest.

"**Zabaniya: Delusional Heartbeat."**

"Sempai!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**[Last Night]**

It had come as a shock to Sakura when her prana flow to Rider suddenly returned.

Then came the realization of what that fact meant. "Nii-san..."

"Is dead."

She turned, and stepping in from the windowsill was Rider. "Rider...what happened?"

"We encountered another master. His servant stalled me as her master fought Shinji. It...did not end well for your brother." Rider answered.

She gasped. Suspicion was one thing, but to be outright confirmed was another. "No...my fault. I shouldn't have..."

An aged voice spoke out from nowhere. "That matters not. An issue has arisen. Come, Sakura, to the basement." Her grandfather, Zouken Matou, declared.

Sakura shuddered, before slowly standing up and following his order, her movements doll-like. There was no use resisting that man. His own familiars occupied her body. Resistance merely meant he would force her to do it himself.

Rider followed her, and they descended into the depths of the Matou house, into the workshop of its patriarch.

Zouken's worms, bloated, fanged caricatures of the base breed writhed on the floor, watched by the withered old man on top of a pedestal.

"Yes, grandfather?" Her voice here was dead, containing no emotion.

He looked at her. "Complications have arisen. I know not how he has done it, but the Emiya boy has summoned four full-powered servants, Sabers by the look of it. There will be no victory unless we even the odds."

She shuddered. _'No. No. This can't be happening. Nononono...' _This was her worst nightmare made real. He would force her to fight against _sempai._

He pointed a hand at her, and unspeakable pain wracked her body as the worms inside her writhed and fed. "You will do as I say. Place yourself upon the circle once more. I will aid in the summoning. Let us see if we can recreate the miracle he has performed." He looked at Rider, who had tensed and was now holding her nails. "Don't even try. She will die first before you kill me." He looked back to Sakura. "Move."

Step by step, she walked over to the circle and knelt, her body shaking as she tried to resist. It was futile.

The worms fed upon her as her grandfather himself wove skeins of prana that bolstered the summoning. "Chant."

She did, and the ritual for the summoning started once more.

Droves of the worms died and withered as she chanted, and by the end, half were gone, their power fed into the attempt to summon another servant, to break the rules of the war the same way that Shirou himself had done.

She finished, but by the end of it, the circle, bright enough to light up even the basement, merely dimmed, leaving shadows.

She was overjoyed. It had failed. She would not-

"I am servant assassin."

'_No...'_

She _had _summoned a servant.

She stood in the circle, a black-haired female garbed in a full-body hooded cloak that showed only her pale face. Even in the darkness of the workshop, she seemed darker still, fading into the shadows even when one focused upon her.

Then Assassin's golden eyes stared into her own, and the world seemed to stop.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Assassin cared not for the grail war.

In her eyes, it was a blasphemy that had seduced even the previous leaders of her society. She cared not for her master, and was already planning on killing her and waging holy war upon the heresy.

Then she saw her eyes.

Empty. They were empty. There was no will in them, no desire, she was but a pawn in this. _Innocent. _Someone like her could not have been willingly chosen for the blasphemous war.

The Hashshashin did not consider themselves clean of innocent blood, yes. They had killed their own share when it was vital for the success of the mission, but they avoided it when they could. And perhaps, it could be avoided now.

But then, who was the true mastermind?

"I see you fail me even now." An aged voice, a horrible voice, croaked out.

She turned, and as she did, curled her lips in disgust at the sight of the worms, withered and living, that wriggled on the ground. Even more upon the discovery of the old man.

"Assassin, when the enemy has four sabers. Truly pitiful." He continued.

Her eyes narrowed. The man...unsettled her. She knew not how she knew, but this was an abomination. A stain upon the eyes of God. He was to be eliminated.

She breathed deeply. Her gift manifested.

In life, she had acquired all of the abilities of the first eighteen leaders, the Old Man of the Mountain. Her gift was what had brought that into being. She had the ability to analyze and understand the bodies of living and once-living things in exact and minute detail.

As all of the Zabaniyas, the leaders' ultimate abilities, were born of body-modification, she had merely visited their graves in the keep, and with it, came complete knowledge of what they had done to acquire their abilities.

What had taken her leaders lifetimes of trial-and-error, she accomplished in a few years of perfect, but painful, modifications. Now, facing an unknown foe, it would tell her exactly what she needed to eliminate the abomination in the most efficient manner possible.

It worked best when she was in contact with the target. Doing so centered all the focus upon the body she was touching. Without contact, it was a comparably less accurate scanning of all living things within close enough range, though she could still focus it upon a single target, and enough time could yield the same level of knowledge.

That said, her purple-haired master, being the closest to her, was easily scanned despite the old man being the actual target.

What she saw disgusted her, and she turned, grabbing her master. "What is wrong with you? What has been done to you? Who did this?" It was madness. Even more putrid versions of the worms writhing on the ground were in her body, draining her, devouring her cell by cell. And in her heart...the appalling monster inside sickened her. "They're _in your body. _Who would do such a thing?"

Above, Zouken sneered at the servant. "It is none of your business, Servant. Follow your orders and fight at your best, or you have no chance of getting the grail."

The servant stared at him. Her gift reached him, and she almost retched at what she found.

Worms. The monster was made of worms. Disgusting monstrous worms even worse than the ones in her master's body.

She shook with rage. It was a strange feeling. It was not the holy rage that came upon her during missions. No, this was the rage upon a monster that all men and women who could call themselves human felt.

No human being would have let this man live. Even villains would have banded together to wipe him from existence.

As a woman of the faith, how could she do any less?

Servant Assassin, Zealot of the Hashshashin, laughed in the face of Zouken Matou. "Fool. I have no desire for the grail save to destroy it, and it seems _you_ are the reason for her defilement." She raised her hand. "You shall die now." It was a statement to her. Not a promise, but a fact that simply had yet to happen.

Zouken shook his head. "You need to kill her first then."

Another laugh. "I know that your heart is inside hers, and that is no barrier to my efforts. **Zabaniya**!" Delusional Heartbeat activated, and from her back, the red hand of Shaitan emerged and placed itself upon her master's chest. A sickening pulsing monster of a worm appeared in its palm, and in a second, she crushed it.

Zouken roared, then devolved into a pile of worms that rushed at her along with all the others in the pit, even as Sakura fell convulsing, the remaining worms inside her reacting to the death of the heart worm.

Rapidly, she acted. Her nails extended, resembling the claws of animals. She rent open the flesh of her palm, and she placed it on her master's bare neck. **"Zabaniya: Blood of Metamorphose." **Her blood sunk into the pores of her skin, changing into virulent viruses that would target only the disgusting worms in her body. It was normally used to poison a target, either through food, or direct contact, but in this method, its destructive capabilities could be used to destroy the cancer within.

Ichor of Reverie would have worked, but she had a feeling that loads of ash was not healthy to one's body.

Then she went to the problem of the multitude of worms heading towards her. **"Zabaniya." **She proclaimed one last time, this time channeling Cyber Fantasy.

For a moment, nothing happened, then the worms, starting from the ones nearest to her, exploded in an expanding ring of burst bodies than ended nearly ten feet away from her.

She turned back to Sakura, and found herself facing Rider, the nails an inch away from her neck.

She blinked. "What?" When had an enemy servant arrived?

"What did you do to her?" Rider asked, her nails pricking her skin.

"The abomination's worms were inside her. I inserted a virus into her body. They targeted only the worms. She is fine now, see?" She blurted out, pointing at Sakura, who had stopped shaking, and was staring at the two in shock.

Rider frowned. "How?"

"Phantasm." Was the answer.

Rider glanced at Sakura. "Master, are you...?"

Slowly, Sakura stood up, shaking like a leaf. "They're gone." She gulped, tears running down her cheeks. "They're gone...she really..." She fell down, unconscious, shock knocking her out.

Rider ran towards her as she fell once more, her shaky legs unable to support her.

Assassin frowned. "I was not aware that a master could have two servants."

Rider knelt and placed the unconscious female on her lap. "Someone broke Heaven's Feel by summoning four sabers." She looked at the mess of dead worms. "That monster made her summon another one to even the odds. They got you. I...do not regret the results."

Assassin frowned. "Do you have a wish?"

Rider laughed. "I had none until I was summoned, and that was for her freedom. Sakura had none save for what you have already granted. I am content, Assassin." She stroked Sakura's hair. "Was it true? Do you truly wish to destroy the grail?"

Assassin nodded. "It is a blasphemy to Allah. To think, that it has seduced four of the leaders of the Hashshashin. I will wage war upon this war, and nothing will stop me."

Rider grinned at her. "You will find no qualms from us." She lifted Sakura. "Come, let us leave this place. I would rather never to see it again, and I feel Sakura feels the same." With that, the two servants walked out with their master.

As they left, the worms that had hidden in the crevices and outskirts of the workshop banded together and slithered into the sewers, driven by mad instinct and the raving, screaming remnants of a shadow of a madman's mind.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was late in the afternoon when Sakura woke up.

It was such a pleasant dream. She had summoned such a wonderful servant, who had proceeded to go against Zouken and destroy him utterly, along with wiping out the worms in her body. But that was just a dream, right? Miracles like that happened to other people.

"I see you're awake."

She turned, eyes wide, sighting Assassin sitting on a chair beside her. _'Oh dear. It wasn't a dream?'_

Assassin picked up a bowl on a table beside her, taking a spoonful and feeding it to Sakura. "You were asleep for quite a while. Here, eat. You need your strength."

She cried. She couldn't help it. It was too much.

Assassin frowned and placed the bowl back on the table. "Is something wrong?"

Sakura hugged her. It was sudden, and Assassin blushed at the contact. "Thank you. Thank you so much. You've done so much for me. I can't thank you enough..." Sakura hiccupped, and hesitantly, Assassin patted her comfortingly on the back.

"It's fine. It's what anyone else with the power would have done. That monster's gone, and you're safe." Assassin said.

Slowly, Sakura pulled back, blushing at her actions.

Assassin nodded. "Right." She went to pick up the bowl, but Sakura beat her to it and started feeding herself.

She finished eating. "So...what now?"

Assassin crossed her arms. "I have heard that you have no wish now that I have destroyed that abomination." A nod. "If that is so, then I shall reveal my intention: I aim to destroy the Holy Grail."

Sakura blinked. "Destroy?"

The zealot nodded. "Yes. I am of the faith, and that object is heresy to our code. Do you have objections?"

Sakura shook her head. "No. It has caused enough grief to the world as it is. I am proud to be your master in this task, Assassin." She blushed. "I...would like to know the name of the one who saved me."

Assassin closed her eyes. "The leaders of the society have no name save for their title. I am not one of them. I am but another nameless servant in the ranks of the Hashshashin."

Sakura blinked. "You must have had a name before that."

Assassin sighed. "It was...Aabidah. My name is Aabidah."

Sakura nodded. "Then thank you, Aabidah, for everything." She blinked. "Wait, what time is it?"

"Around five in the afternoon." Rider answered from the doorway.

Sakura's eyes widened. "I missed school?" She tried to stand up.

Rider walked over to her and pushed her back into a sitting position. "No. A single day without school is not important. You can go visit Shirou tomorrow. For now, rest."

Then Aabidah suddenly turned on her seat, gazing out of the window. She hissed. "A master, with two servants. I shall deal with this." She faded, suddenly blending into her surroundings, moving quickly downwards, Rider following her.

For a moment, Sakura stared at the space they once occupied. They were just so _fast._

Wait. **Two **servants? There was only one other master with more than one servant.

Sakura gasped. She pushed open the window.

The moment she did, Aabidah leapt out of the house in astral form, solidifying right after to activate her phantasm. **"Zabaniya: Delusional Heartbeat!" **The crimson hand emerged once more, placing itself upon Shirou's chest.

She screamed. "Sempai!"

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**Did I just do that? Yes, I just did. Enjoy the cliffhanger.**

**Aabidah means 'worshipper'. It was the first name that popped up in the name-creator. Coincidence? It seems the fanfiction gods favor this one.**

**Honestly, Aabidah is hard to write. While there's direct information as to how she acts, there are few scenes showing how she actually does so.**

**Strangely enough, she bears a lot of resemblance to Shirou. Let's see, ridiculous devotion, zero self-worth, withstood incredible pain to gain their abilities, fakers...**

**Okay, whose idea was it to make a genderbent Hassan Shirou? This screams of One True Pairing to me, and I actually approve. Honestly, if I had figured that out before, you probably wouldn't be reading Nerve Damage, but instead a story where Shirou summons Aabidah. Damn. Opportunity missed.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Writing the talking scenes is hard, so sorry if the characters might be a bit off.**

**After that though is action, which is awesome as all hell. Enjoy the fight, and kudos to the guys who got Medea's second summoned servant right. Seriously, I practically gave it to you, so it's pitiful that some people didn't get it.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

A noble phantasm.

The legends of heroes crystallized and given even greater form. Few mortals could survive them even in the age of legends. Even fewer in the modern age.

So Aabidah was understandably surprised when the copy heart of the master only formed halfway before cracking and shattering.

The two Sabers beside him reacted, their clothes transforming into their battle-dress, weapons appearing in their hands. They swung their blades upon the one who had dared to harm their master so.

Even before they had done so however, Rider had already acted. She kicked open the door, chains lashing out and grabbing onto Aabidah.

She pulled, and Aabidah was wrenched backwards, avoiding the Sabers' blows by inches.

Even as she was pulled back, Assassin was already reacting. Dozens of black knives that to Shirou's eyes seemed more shadow than steel leaped from her fingers with uncanny speed and accuracy, striking out at velocities more in line with modern rifles.

To a servant, especially ones as distinguished as the King of Knights and the Empress of Rome, they were paltry weapons. Saber stood her ground in front of Shirou, deflecting the knives with minute movements of her invisible blade.

Nero slung Aestus Estus on one shoulder as she charged. Her other hand darted out in rapid slaps, deflecting the thrown blades with strange ease, as if she had done it before. Her eyes narrowed when she recognized Rider. "You. Didn't your master die?" Two meters away, she held her sword in two hands once more, and swung down.

Assassin had already been relieved of the chains, and dodged to the side. Rider surprised Nero when she darted forward, nails forming an X as she pushed upward to block the blow.

In their previous battle, Rider was at most C-rank in strength, weak compared to her own A-rank might. This time, when their weapons met, instead of collapsing under the strain, Rider held her almost to a standstill. Nero was surprised even more when for a moment, Rider's skin seemed to turn into gray scales, which coincided with a sudden increase in strength that was beyond even her own, enough to push forward and unbalance her. An instant later, Rider's skin was back to normal, and Nero suddenly found a slender foot buried in her gut.

She rolled backward from the impact, leaping back to a standing position halfway from Saber, eyes narrowed. "You're more powerful this time." Aestus Estus started to burn with power, and she grinned as she prepared to attack once more.

Saber stepped up beside her, eyes narrowed in anger. "You die today, _assassin." _She spat the word like a curse, and the air seemed to pick up into a gale. Rider settled into a crouch, a stance in preparation to pounce, and Assassin drew out more of the black knives.

"Stop. Oh god, stop." Shirou's voice had them ceasing their charge, and a quick glance showed him with a horrified look in his face. His skin was so pale it was almost white.

"Shirou, these are _enemies." _Saber stated.

The sword incarnation swallowed audibly. "No. They can't be. _Sakura." _He said hoarsely, gaze up high.

Saber blinked, then looked up and gasped. Sakura, that girl that visited him nearly everyday. There she was, on the second floor of the house, a similarly appalled look on her face as she leaned out of the window. "Damn."

"Sempai." Sakura muttered. "No. I didn't mean..." He had almost _died. _She didn't know how he survived, but it was most certainly a miracle that he did.

Rider gritted her teeth. To think, that she had forgotten this fact. Sakura would never fight against Shirou. She just _couldn't._

Aabidah glanced at Sakura. "You...know him?" She asked tentatively. There was something more to this boy than just an acquaintance, something that ran deeper in Sakura's eyes.

Tears ran down Sakura's cheeks as she looked at Aabidah. "I'm so sorry, but I can't let you hurt him. Assassin, by the order of this command seal, you are never to intentionally harm Shirou, indirectly or otherwise."

Assassin gasped as the order activated. "You! After what I have done for you?!" Betrayal. Right after saving her from hell. It was mind-boggling.

Sakura shook her head. "I can't. Not Sempai." She choked out, shaking like a leaf at her action.

Aabidah screamed, before leaping away, clearing the roof and running as fast as her A-rank agility could take her.

That left Rider alone with two hostile servants.

For a moment, it seemed ready to sprout into violence, then Saber and Nero stepped back and lowered their weapons. Saber shook her head. "It seems there is more to this than it seems. A ceasefire. For now." To deny her own servant that willingly for her master, Saber would give such a person a chance to explain herself.

Rider leaped up, grabbing Sakura and bringing her to the ground. Then she stepped back, letting the two masters interact as they stepped forward until they were almost within arms' reach of each other.

Shirou gulped. "You're a magus too?" Sakura. A magus. What next, Issei? Ayako? _Taiga?_

Shamefully, Sakura nodded.

He looked at Rider. "What about you? I thought you were Shinji's."

Rider nodded. "Before, I was. Now? I am hers." It was close enough to the truth.

He gritted his teeth. "I saw you drain that woman. How many have you killed?" He doubted she was the one causing all the 'gas leaks', but there were more than a few incidents of blood-drained victims.

"About half a dozen. In my defense, it was all Shinji's orders. Either way, I no longer need to do so since Sakura can supply me properly." She informed him blandly, as if other mortals were beyond her care.

Shirou scowled at her, then his face softened as he looked back to Sakura. "So, you're a master." He doubted she had gone into this willingly, or if she had, it was most certainly with regret to the violence she would meet. It was _Sakura. _She was like a saint! The notion of her entering this bloodbath seemed ridiculous even now.

She nodded. "The Matou were one of the founders. They're always guaranteed a spot in the war. Grandfather made me join when Shinji died." Technically the truth. She had stepped out when Shinji took Rider as his own. His death had merely forced her to take his place once more.

Shirou gritted his teeth at the reminder. Did he dare? It would be hard to say, but it was what's right. War or not, he had killed her _brother. _If she never wanted to see him again, then fine. Otherwise, he didn't have the will to look her in the eye without her knowing what he had done. It would be like lying to her face to act like a friend after killing Shinji.

"...I killed him." There. He had said it, and damn the consequences.

Sakura blinked. "Sempai?" There was confusion in her voice, as if the words didn't quite make sense in her head.

"I killed Shinji, Sakura." He repeated.

It clicked, and she gasped, hand covering her mouth. "No..."

Shirou hung his head in shame. "I couldn't let him live, Sakura. He was making...Rider, kill people, and he _liked _seeing them die. I couldn't let it go on." Said out loud to _Sakura_ of all people, the logical reasoning sounded empty in his ears.

"Sempai..." Sakura could barely believe it. Shirou? Wonderful, impossibly nice Shirou? Kill someone? But then, everyone had hidden depths didn't they? No one would ever expect the truth about her for one, so perhaps Shirou wasn't so surprising. It still hurt.

"I cared not for his death. He was a pitiful waste of a human being." Rider declared.

"Rider!" Sakura yelled at her.

The servant shook her head. "No. I will not be silenced in this. Understand this, Emiya: Sakura has been suffering all these years beyond anything you can imagine under her so-called 'family'. Assassin saved her from that. She cleansed her and purged that abomination that was her grandfather. Whatever wish she may have had for the grail is gone, fulfilled by Assassin. But when given the choice between her savior and you, she chose to alienate her savior. Know and understand this Shirou Emiya, and choose your next decisions wisely. Prove to me that she chose right."

Shirou blinked. "What?" _Suffered? _He looked at Sakura. "Sakura, what is she talking about?"

The purple-haired girl drew in on herself, and her voice was like a doll when she spoke next. "Nothing. Nothing of importance Sempai. Nothing that you need to know." That she was freed of the worms did not mean she was free of her past completely. If Sempai discovered what had been done to her, how soiled and tainted she was...she couldn't bear the thought.

To Shirou, her words and her voice was worse than nearly any other response. He had heard of it before, how some victims would wish to never let others know of their experiences when it was horrible enough. He did not need to know _what, _but her reaction told him it was something that quite possibly would have sent him into murderous fury.

He gritted his teeth. _Something _had been done to Sakura, and it boiled his blood. He wanted to hurt something, preferably whoever it was that had hurt her. But if what Rider said was true...his shoulders slumped. "You should have chosen her instead." He was useless. All this time, one of his friends had been suffering, and he hadn't been able to do anything, much less even notice it. Why would she even bother to choose him over her heroine?

Sakura shook her head. "No. I...made the right choice."

Shirou sighed, then looked at Sakura. "I'm not in this war for the grail. It doesn't have the power to grant my wish. I aim to make sure no innocents die, and that only those who should fight are in the crossfire. The battles should be servant against servant, with the masses left out of it. And even if it wasn't, even if masters _did _have to fight, I wouldn't go against you. Whatever secrets you may have, you're Sakura. You'd never hurt anyone. I trust you. There will be no violence between us. Not now. Not ever."

Her face reddened, and she swallowed nervously. "Sempai..." He believed in her this much? It seemed like a dream to hear it from him, to trust his life so much on a fool like her whose servant had almost ended his life.

He looked heavenward. "It's getting dark. Let's...go home. This place..." he had never visited her house before. Now, he found it comparable to the church. What had been done to Sakura here? Shinji...was a sadistic fiend. Her grandfather sounded much worse. Sakura, living in a house with people like those all these years? He could only imagine.

However, he would not probe. Whatever it was, her heroine had saved her from it, permanently. It would not do to make her think on those memories. If she would reveal it to him, then it was her choice, otherwise, he could only wonder, and think of a way to fix her and Assassin's relationship once more. It was the least he could do. Perhaps the _only _thing he could do.

She blinked. "What?"

"Do you...want to stay here?" He clarified. She shook her head. "Then let's leave. I...don't like it here. You can stay over at my house." He blushed at the implications. "Unless you mean to stay over at your other friends' houses of course. I'm sure Ayako wouldn't mind." Sakura blush deepened as the two shifted to an embarrassed silence.

Saber blinked. "What about her?" She asked, gesturing to Rider.

Shirou looked at her, then to Sakura. "Do you trust her? To keep at peace and to keep the innocents out of the war now that she isn't being ordered to kill?"

There it was again. He wasn't asking the legends he had summoned of their opinions or instincts. He was asking _her. 'Oh sempai...' _Hesitantly she said, "Yes."

Shirou nodded. "That's good enough for me." And his tone brooked no arguments.

Squaring his shoulders, he turned his back and walked away, unafraid of retaliation. Sakura trusted Rider, therefore she was worthy of his trust. If Sakura's word wasn't to be trusted, then what was? He would sooner believe the sky had fallen.

Sakura breathed deeply, then moved in-step beside him, the sabers stepping aside to let her past. That much confidence in her integrity lent itself to them giving her a measure of doubt. Rider however...

The servants of the sword glared at the servant of the mount.

"One step out of line..." Saber threatened. Beside her, Nero's sword flared for an instant into its molten form, a reminder of their past battle. Then the two, as one, faced the other way and marched out.

Rider's lips curved upward for a tiny amount. It was almost unnoticeable. _'Good choice. Let's hope you keep this up.' _A moment later, it was gone, and she followed the group to the Emiya residence.

Then halfway there, Shirou suddenly stopped, eyes wide. "The hell. Lily. Alter. They're fighting someone." He turned to one direction, reinforced himself to the limit, then proceeded to run.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Alter and Lily had been window-shopping.

Unbeknownst to Shirou, there had been a sort of schedule already set up as to how he would be guarded. While school was ongoing, all four were to patrol near the school. When the students had left, two of them, who would be determined in the morning through a combination of 'dibs' and preferences for the day, would be the one to guard him.

Thus, with two servants guarding their rather unusual but nonetheless powerful master, Lily decided it would be a wonderful time to examine the fashion of this world.

Alter had been...less than spirited.

"Fashion? What use to the war are the whimsies of strutting harridans?" The Tyrant of Knights asked.

The Queen of Knights crossed her arms. "Oh pooh. I expected this from Saber, but you? Didn't you reveal your feminity to the public?"

Alter rolled her eyes. "I did, but by that time I had already cemented my title as the Black Dragon of Britain. I was the blood-soaked conquering hero. It would have been unbecoming of me to conform to their fancies. It is the other way around. It is **I **who sets the trend." She declared hotly.

Lily looked at the rather fashionable and luxurious black dress Alter wore. "Then where did you get that?"

Silence.

Alter muttered something incomprehensible.

Lily leaned in. "Say again?"

Alter scowled. "Morgan and Guinevere. They didn't like the military attires I wore since everyone else went in wearing some copy of mine or another so they looked out of place in theirs, so they made me wear this and others like it during civic gatherings."

Lily laughed, then clapped her on the shoulder. "Then think of it as that, only you're the one who gets to choose your own outfit. We can't have you wearing the same thing everyday, can we?"

"We don't have any money." Alter noted.

"I'm sure Shirou wouldn't mind buying us half a dozen outfits or so later. He wouldn't deny a girl clothes, would he?" Lily suggested.

Alter gave her a look. "You're not going to stop until I give in aren't you?"

"Nope!" The Queen of Knights replied with cheer.

The Black Dragon of Britain sighed. "Let's get this over with."

Admittedly, it had been quite fun for a few hours as they moved through multiple clothing stores and tried on different outfits. Alter kept to blacks, and darker shades of red and blue and purple. Lily tried out everything she could get her hands on that she thought she could turn into a serviceable outfit.

Then somewhere along the way, just as they were entering another store, their senses had tingled, and they had never gotten far without trusting their instincts.

They turned around.

Outside, two figures stood. One, an overly tall red-haired Asian, grinned hungrily at them. Wearing civilian clothes, his figure bulged with muscles, and teeth more pointed than normal jutted out when he grinned. Power radiated off of him in waves, filled with bloodlust and overbearing lethality.

Compared to that, his companion was almost negligible, for they felt no power or supernatural presence from him. If it wasn't for the fact that despite his outlandish samurai dress, people for some reason could not help but ignore him in a no doubt supernatural way, they would have thought him a mere human companion, a master most probably.

But then, masters typically didn't make their well-honed Instincts scream at them of danger that was practically on the same level as the red-haired one. This was a peculiar pair indeed.

The redhead raised a hand and gestured for them to come, before turning around and walking away, grinning all the while. His samurai companion nodded at them, then followed his acquaintance.

The two alternates looked at each other. They grinned.

With their blood pumping fast, they moved out and followed the two servants, gearing for a fight.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sasaki smiled as he walked beside his friend. He could not call him anything less after what he had done. "I thank you once again. Truly without your intervention, I doubt I would have been blessed with a chance to trade blows with warriors like them." He could feel it just by looking at them. Despite their looks, they were absolutely mighty spirits, almost unmatched in their legend, whatever theirs was.

The redhead laughed. "You're welcome, samurai. Truly, she would have been a fool to refuse. Strong as I am, I do not consider myself invincible. I would require a...what is the term? Wingman was it? To aid me in battle, lest I be cursed to an ignoble death under the wrath of four opposing servants."

Sasaki nodded in acceptance. Absently, he fingered the necklace he wore. The warrior beside him had persuaded the witch to craft him a talisman that would allow him to venture beyond the gate. A fragment of said gate had been taken, and turned into this. As long as he wore it, he could actually _look _for combat, instead of drearily waiting for it at that godforsaken mountain path.

He tapped the hilt of his blade. And that too. He had not accepted enchantments of killing. Pride in his skills would not allow it. But preservation? Of strengthening the weapon so that his nameless sword would not shatter under the force of true noble phantasms? That had been welcomed.

"_You are incredibly skilled. Very skilled. Admittedly...more skilled than me. I give credit where credit is due, and you have earned it. Ahh, if only you had fought in a war. Truly, your name would have been spoken in reverence for centuries to come. I will not allow someone of your caliber to fall because of the enemy's overwhelming weaponry. The witch will make your blade worthy of meeting enemy phantasms in combat, or I will walk away. That, I swear."_

To be acknowledged...he had never truly thought about it when he earned his skill. The prize of skill itself was more important back then. But now, hearing praise, _praise, _from such an established hero, he had to admit that it was not an unpleasant feeling.

"I am honored to fight by your side, general." He said to his friend. Sasaki was no leader, but the man beside him was, and after what he had done for him, once the grail war was won he would be proud to fight under his banner. If he still lived by then that is.

The warrior chuckled. "Show me your gratitude by fighting well. That is all I ask." A warrior and a general both indeed.

They moved quickly. They were servants after all. In a few minutes, they were at the decided location: the docks.

They turned around.

The two sabers walked out of the shadowy streets and into the light.

For a moment, all was still.

The four grinned.

For the three in civilian guises, their appearances changed.

Lily was armed once more with Caliburn, her form-fitting armor upon her frame, while Alter stood tall and proud in her ebony plate, Nek'il, the shadow archdemon, operating once more as Excalibur Sanguine's sheath.

The redhead's cloth was gone. In its place was ancient Chinese war-plate, ornate and master-crafted. In one hand he held a gigantic halberd of no doubt legendary make. He gripped it in two hands and settled into a stance while Sasaki drew the long blade strapped to his back.

Alter frowned. "A halberd?"

The Chinese laughed. "Of course! You face a Lancer, Saber. Is it not obvious?"

Alter raised an eyebrow. "Impossible. We have already faced a Lancer."

The Chinese Lancer chuckled. "Then come, and allow me to prove myself." Alter huffed and charged, the ground she stood on shattering as prana burst propelled her towards the servant, who proceeded to simply run towards her, eating up the distance at admittedly impressive speeds.

And so, battle was met.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A Lancer was reportedly the fastest of the knight classes, and Lily would have found it exciting to match her own incredible speed to this Chinese Lancer's. But the seemingly powerless one who stood with all the poise of an excellent saber intrigued her.

Where the two knight servants had charged, the samurai had merely walked leisurely towards them, blade steady in his hand as he approached.

Lily frowned. "A lancer huh? And what would you be?"

He smiled. "I am technically known as Assassin, but my name would be Sasaki Kojirou."

Lily blinked. To reveal one's name so openly... "To show yours so easily. I have to return that grace." She stood tall as she proclaimed her identity. "I am Lily Pendragon, Queen of Knights. Prepare yourself, Sasaki Kojirou."

With that, she bounded towards him, Saber Lily, the fastest of the four, and arguably the most skilled, with literally centuries of combat and training under her belt. She got within range, and almost died for it.

He moved _so fast_. His speed was beyond her, beyond nearly anything she had witnessed. Unlike the few she had met who were faster than him however, he had enormous skill to back it up. His overly long sword, which by all rights should have been unwieldy and slow, blurred and swiped towards her in a blinding flash of silvery steel.

Caliburn swept up, guided by instinct honed beyond compare, and it was barely able to block his lethal strikes. Face, throat, stomach, heart. She would block the strike headed for one, feel his blade for the barest fraction of an instant, and then it would be withdrawn and slashed at another vital area.

In the end, she leapt away, unharmed, but eyes wide at what had previously seemed to be an ordinary mortal. "You are extraordinary." She admitted.

He smiled and nodded. "Thank you. As are you. I find myself exerting great effort to put you on your toes."

Lily clicked her teeth. She gripped Caliburn firmly. "Let's try this again." She stepped forward, more carefully this time, and unleashed a flurry of blows to make any blademaster weep.

This time, it was him on the defensive, and seeing him react was mind-boggling.

He didn't block them. Rather, he guided them away from him. The merest tap of his overly long blade, a slight push, a light knock, and her attacks would be guided away from meeting his flesh.

It was godlike skill in action. Her instincts would tell her of the best way to take his life and secure victory, yet apparently even her best was repulsed by this incredible warrior who had appeared to hold no power.

Dozens of attacks, all done with skill born of centuries of experience, and it was all for naught.

She had her pride too, and she would not stand for that.

Prana burst activated, and for an instant, she was six times faster than she actually was. Her body creaked as she moved beyond her limits, and her return blow came, at her swiftest possible speed, in a maneuver meant to tear open his stomach and spill his guts.

He reacted to it. His blade touched hers once, and angled it in a way so that the different angle, his bent body and half-step, contributed to a moderate cut instead of a fatal gut wound.

The instant ended, and he hopped backwards, smiling even as his free hand touched the wound.

Lily shook her head in amazement. "What manner of servant are you?" She could not accept that such a warrior was an honorless master-killer. Speed nearly unmatched, and sword-skill beyond anything she had ever imagined. The warrior would have been a glorious saber.

Assassin laughed. "I am, in truth, a fake. I am ploy by a servant to harness a servant. I am no heroic spirit. I am but a nameless wraith who seeks the thrill of battle, and you, Lily, are a truly worthy foe. My greatest technique would be required to best you." He settled into a strange stance, one that despite its unusual appearance screamed of imminent danger and death.

Lily smiled. "So a caster tried to break the rules too? Interesting. But that is no matter. You may be but a wraith, but I have no doubt that if you had bothered to show your skills, legends would have been made about you, and we would be facing each other as fellow heroes. Show me your best, warrior." Her instincts were blazing and yelling, and she prepared herself.

"**Tsubame Gaeshi!" **The move was announced, Assassin moved, and reality was broken as what was impossible was made possible.

Three attacks performed simultaneously. Not at ridiculous speeds, but truly at the same period in time. Three attacks that, when used together, provided no escape.

But Lily proved her skill this time. If one could not dodge, then one must block. If one cannot block, then one must make the blows survivable.

Prana burst empowered her to speeds beyond Assassin once more, and she moved her body at the right positions. Two slashes struck her at angles and places that would bleed hard, but were not fatal, while the last, truly fatal strike, was blocked by Caliburn.

For a moment, they were still, shock and amazement in each other's eyes.

Assassin, at the skill it must have taken to make the damage from his ultimate move survivable and workable.

Lily, at the skill it must have taken to literally do the impossible.

They leaped away.

Lily shook her head once more when she landed. "Beyond the boundaries of reality you have delved with naught but skill. You impress me once more."

Assassin laughed. "And you, hero, impress me by living. One whom I can make bleed should not be capable of surviving that attack."

Lily touched the wounds at her left rib and right shoulder. They trickled blood, but were already sealing and would not hinder her movements aside from the minimal pain. "I remember something my first teacher once told me: in battle you must dodge. If you cannot dodge, you must block. If you cannot block, you must survive. I applied it here."

Sasaki smiled. "He sounds like a wise man. Shall we finish this?"

Suddenly, he spun, using once more than strange combination of evasion and 'guiding' his enemy's weapon away from him on Nero as she came down from on high to crush him with her blade.

The Empress of Rome rained blow upon blow upon him, and though her own impressive skills weren't on Lily's level, her strength was unmatched among the four. Sasaki however, knew what her arrival meant, and he gave ground, quickly backpedaling at a certain direction. "General! Reinforcements have arrived. What is your plan?"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Prana burst channeled through Alter's body as she leapt forward, meeting the man's halberd with her sword of shadows.

Their weapons met, and her grin widened when she saw him raise an eyebrow at her strength. She pushed forward, and he gave ground, hopping away to bleed off the impact. "Is that all?" She taunted.

He chuckled. "Foolish of me to be deceived by your appearance. We are heroes after all. Appearance merely belies the tiger inside. I will not be fooled again." Then he _moved._

His initial charge was but a shadow of his true speed. He was faster than Berserker, and though he held not a candle to the madman's strength, he made up for it with actual skill.

He blurred out of sight, and it was only her instinct that saved her. She shifted to the right, prana burst jetting her arms to block the blow that rattled her arms with the impact.

Well, it seems that while she was undeniably stronger than him, his own strength was not without respect.

He grinned at her, then proceeded to rain blows at speeds beyond even A-rank agility. The warrior was truly an excellent Lancer, to have such speed and yet maintain respectable strength. No doubt, his endurance was exceptional too.

Surprisingly, she found herself having a hard time. Normally, her instinct would have made up entirely for the deficiency in speed, her enemy's attacks blocked or dodged with minimal effort. Now, she found it inadequate and had to resort to liberal use of prana burst to survive. Instinct told her that there was more to this enemy than great skill and overwhelming speed. Each strike was lethal, each blow nigh-perfectly timed, each attack a step towards victory.

Her eyes widened in realization, and the cement below her cracked and shattered as she backpedaled to gain space. She frowned. "Instinct. You have it too."

Lancer chuckled. "Indeed. I am as surprised as you. Usually, I find my enemies quickly falling under my blows. If they can match the speed, they cannot match the precision, the timing, the way each strike adds up to the other and ends in their inevitable defeat. Truly, this is the difference between heroes and ordinary men." He cracked his neck. "Let's get your senses even more confused, shall we?"

He ran at her, and his speed enabled him to match her strength for the first blow. He raised his halberd for the second, and suddenly, it changed, parts shifting and clicking together and apart to form an axe. He brought it down, and the force that met her blade was no longer lesser, but greater, than her own. He swiped sideways when she blocked the blow, and the weapon changed once more, now a two-handed sword.

She blocked it, arms jolting from the impact. Swift as a snake, faster than ever, he spun in reverse, and the weapon swept in to cleave her in half from the other side. Prana burst jetted her arms, forcing them to block in time. Then the weapon changed into an entirely different form.

It shifted, bladed protrusions shooting out and taking off a shred of armor on one shoulder. She spun, shadowy blade grinding against legendary steel as she disengaged from the enemy. She glared at the new form, a construct seemingly made from four spears attached at the base. "The hell." She cursed.

Lancer grinned, then threw it at her while running. Prana burst activated, and with effort she knocked it right back at him, almost getting gutted by the wildly spinning object.

As his own weapon spun towards him, Lancer sidestepped in time as it come inches to his face, grabbing it by the center and rotating, making use of its own momentum to throw it back at her at even higher speeds than before.

This time, Alter didn't bother sending it back at him, just deflecting the spinning wheel of doom to the side. Lancer, in response, leaped towards it, catching it midflight, then rebounding off a wall to charge at her, now wielding a halberd.

She moved to intercept him, when her instincts flickered, and she adjusted her response just in time. A meter away from her, the halberd changed to a sword, and instead of multiple thrusts or an overhead smash, she found herself defending against a master swordsman whose attacks were even faster than before.

Then it was an axe again, and she was blindsided by the sudden change, skidding across the ground as the impact failed to send her flying.

He grinned, quickly stepping backwards as the weapon changed into an entirely different shape. A gigantic bow was in his hands, and with speed born of experience, he drew an arrow from nowhere, nocked it, had it burst into fire, and launch it at her at supersonic speeds and with all the power of a missile.

"Oh bugger me." Alter cursed as the arrow slammed into the ground in front of her. Fire screamed out, and chunks of molten cement were thrown into the air from the explosion. Several almost hit her, and despite the smoke, she blocked them with pure instinct.

Then said instincts started screaming at her, and she backpedaled.

A stream of the missile-like arrows leaped out at her, creating a staccato of murderous detonations that traced her location. She beat at shards of cement as she ran, swearing in anger as she watched him grin and smirk as he continued the ranged assault.

The ground at her feet shattered, and went at him in a straight line. Every move was powered by prana burst, each concrete-crushing step, each arm-shaking deflection of the exploding arrows. "I will **end **you." She promised him as she got close.

It changed back into a halberd, and he met her in close combat once more.

Sparks flickered across their weapons as they clashed. This time, it was her on the offensive, and she found herself rejoicing at the fact that he wasn't nearly as skilled at defending as he was at offense.

He gave ground quickly, backpedaling to bleed away the force of her prana burst-enhanced strikes. Cracks started appearing on his armor, and he bled where there wasn't any to protect. Then when she almost had him to a wall, he leaped. One moment he was crouching, the next he was suddenly high up on a wall. Then from there, he rebounded back towards her, gravity now on his side.

The axe, which she now knew as his weapon of choice for power strikes, slammed home upon her blade. Her greaves sunk up to her shin in the cement, so great was the force, and he pushed off of her, landed behind her and aiming to decapitate her with the sword, which seemed to enhance his speed even more.

A jet of prana rotated her to face him, and she met the strike with a savage grin. "You are one annoying foe."

He chuckled. "And you are tenacious, and just won't die." His axe turned into back into a halberd, extending past her. Then he pulled it back with all the speed he could muster.

Needless to say, the halberd was a long weapon, and the head, the weapon itself, had extended behind her. When he pulled it back, the back side of the weapon slammed home on her back, rending armor and ripping off flesh.

He spun, rotating and expecting to slice her neck off while she was surprised from the pain. He didn't expect her left hand to spring upwards, meeting the axe, and the gauntlet all but shattered, resulting in her bare hand gripping the weapon.

Despite the horrendous wound on her back, she grinned at him, and her other hand, the one wielding her sword, struck him at his side, ripping into his flesh and rupturing organs with the impact of the solid, prana-burst enhanced strike.

Then they gripped their weapons with both hands, and slammed them together, a shockwave occurring as opposite forces met.

Despite their injuries, the ravaged hand, the ruptured side, the savaged back, there was no decrease in their respective battle effectiveness, and Alter groaned in realization. "Ah damn. You have battle continuation too?"

Lancer chuckled. "Many were the times where I had to fight thousands in one sitting. I couldn't let a gut wound or two interfere with the slaughter, could I?"

Alter, it seemed, had met her match. If she was defending, then his blows were guided to best fell her, but her blocks were designed to still said blows. If she was on the offensive, then her attacks would be calculated to hit him at his most vulnerable, but his own instinct would enable him to survive, to block and dodge as needed.

In this, their respective instincts were nullified to a point. Hers however, was better, of that she had no doubt. The problem was, he was a horribly confusing enemy. He had a weapon with multiple forms that it could shift to in less than an instant, and he had experience in chaining attacks from different forms.

What advantage she had in instinct was used up trying to keep up with his dizzying and unorthodox style, while his own advantage in natural speed was matched with prana burst. He was always overwhelmingly fast, but she was a rank stronger and in limited uses, she could spur her body to speeds beyond his.

And they both apparently had high ranks in battle continuation, which meant this could go on for a while. It was a stalemate.

So the problem was, how exactly to shift the odds in her favor?

A decision was made, and Alter growled as she pushed forward against his axe with a growl and an application of prana burst. "**Nek'il Hi'tiyad'ril! Come forth!"** If her foe was truly this troublesome, then a noble phantasm would have to be used.

Lancer blinked in surprise as the shadow that was her blade suddenly expanded and pushed him back dozens of meters away in a rush of incredible force. Then it started sprouting claws and blades and tried to kill him, and he grinned in response. **"Red Hare! Come to me, my steed!" **He proclaimed, all the while fending off the numerous sharp appendages that were attempting to slice him to ribbons with Sword Force.

Fire blazed forth behind him, and with practiced ease, he hopped away and grabbed the bridle of the gigantic red horse as it rushed past his side, pulling his body upon the saddle one-handed and turning his weapon back into a halberd. "Charge."

His body, his weapon, and most especially his horse blazed with fire, and the speed multiplied to a level that Red Hare normally would be incapable of reaching as its flaming hooves seared the ground and left flaming hoofmarks in its tread. He imagined the shadow-thing must have looked rather surprised when he trampled it and knocked it to the side, continuing on to run the black Saber to the ground.

She stood her ground, and Lancer had to admit the glory her weapon possessed. It was a dark thing, a weapon of black steel and bloodmarks, and it shimmered with barely-contained power and wrath. He would enjoy defeating the wielder of such a phantasm. Faintly, he heard her whisper something, _"libur..." _No doubt, it was her phantasm's ability.

At the apex of their charge, Red Hare's attack activated fully, and for the last second before it connected, the speed increased even more. Just in case though... **"Sky Piercer!" **The halberd glowed with power, and combined with the situation, instead of the beam it would normally create, the energy encompassed the rider and the horse, turning them into the projectile that would pierce all flesh instead.

She swung her weapon. **"Reap!" **A crescent of black outlined in red leaped out, glowing with power and wrath, and he knew he made the right choice.

Alone, with just sky piercer or just Red Hare, Lancer would have been annihilated by that darkness. But together? His power equaled the crescent's, and he broke through it, shattering the darkness with his fiery light, and he slammed into the surprised Alter, his spear knocking her weapon away, and Red Hare, no longer burning or glowing with power, but still a lethal beast, trampling her under his hooves.

The charge slowed and went into a stop meters away from her, and he blinked when she stood up and calmly grabbed her sword.

Alter cracked her neck to the left, then to the right. She grinned at him. "Fucking impressive. Should have gone and used the one for busting fortresses on you, but people are on the other side. You got lucky." Her armor was cracked and barely serviceable, and deciding that it was practically useless now, had it disappear. She breathed deeply. "Right. I'm going to tear you a new one for that Lu Bu."

The now identified Lu Bu laughed. "Ha! Anti-fortress? Truly, this is an incredible night. You whispered its name, I think, so I know not your identity. Wise, Saber." He looked behind him, at the sea. This time, she did not have to worry about hitting innocents. If she used her phantasm's full power, she would hurt no one but the sea. And him of course.

Then Sasaki's voice rang out, "General! Reinforcements have arrived. What is your plan?"

Lu Bu glanced at his direction, then at Alter. "Another day, saber." He nodded at her, then forced another attacking charge from Red Hare. As he passed beside Sasaki, the samurai leaped into the air, landing behind him, sitting sidesaddle as if born to it, and the two swiftly retreated, knowing the danger of facing four sabers.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Alter blinked, then snarled. "Oh goddamn it. I had the son of a pig."

Shirou ran up to her, "Alter! Are you al-"

Whatever he was about to say was cut off when Alter grabbed him by the neck and started shaking him roughly. "You should have waited another minute, fool summoner! I had him right where I wanted him!" Then she stopped when he noticed his overly red face. That worried her. "Is something wrong? You're really...red." Then she looked down, and her own face reddened. "Crap."

Apparently, the damage of the trampling went beyond her armor. Admittedly, if it was enough to shatter her black plate, than it was enough to completely tear to shreds the flimsier cloth under it. Case in point, the fact that her modesty was in very real danger of disappearing in seconds. Her chest was covered by strips of cloth, and the lacy black panties she wore were completely visible to the one she was currently holding.

She dropped Shirou. "Nek'il! Get over here!" The demon seemed to chuckle as it half-slithered, half-flowed towards her, covering her in a cloak of shadow-stuff. "Oh shut your trap. You barely got to do anything before getting trampled like an imp."

"**In my defense, that horse was BIG. And it was on fire." **The demon muttered. Honestly, the horse was as big as Cerberus or that big golden lion the other sabers fought!

Then Alter saw Rider, and a lot of explaining was needed.

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**And it's done. How's that for a battle? War heats up FAST doesn't it?**

**Seriously, Chinese, weapon changes, canon servant? How could you NOT get Lu Bu? **

**By the way, for those who think Rin will be summoning different versions of Shirou, sorry, but she won't. Too troublesome. That, and I already have plans for her. Also, this:**

**Omake: Why Nerve Damage Archer can't be Summoned**

Rin kicked open the door, and blinked when she saw...Emiya?!

It WAS Shirou Emiya, though he looked much older now and for some reason had apparently gotten a tan and his hair was halfway gray. "Hi."

Her jaw dropped. Emiya. Shirou 'fake janitor' Emiya...was a heroic spirit?!

He cracked his neck. "Right. This is a few days before I meet Lancer isn't it?" He clapped her on the shoulder. "Don't worry Rin! I'll take of this war in a jiffy!" Then he created a giant glowing word-sword...thingy, stepped on it, and flew out like something out of a bad comic.

She stared at him as he faded into a speck into the distance. "What."

Far away, Shirou floated above the Matou house. "I have just the thing." Three seconds later, a mass of word-blades shaped into a giant drill had forged a hole into the worm-pit. A snap of his fingers separated the word-blades into individuals that hunted all the worms. Then he broke into Sakura's room and pointed a sword he had found in an ancient church when he was thirty. "Purify."

Flames with all the colors of the rainbow flared out from it and enveloped her. Moments later, they faded, leaving an unharmed Sakura who was absently feeling at her chest.

"Hurts anything that's evil. Good things are unharmed. You're like a saint, ergo, perfect. Now wait here, I just have to deal with Gil and Kirei and save Ilya." Then he made a lion out of Word-blades and left it there and flew out again.

He looked at the church. The church continued feeling horrible. "Yeah. I'm going to destroy this place." He raised his hand and pointed it at the sky. "I blame anime for this." A word-blade made of thousands of word-blades formed, high as a skyscraper and just as wide. He slammed it down. Yeah. That got Kirei.

Then the section on top of the church broke as noble phantasms ruptured it.

'_And there's Gilgamesh.'_

"You! Mongrel! You dare attempt to go against your king?!" The King of Heroes shouted at him.

"Trace On. Excaliblast Septa initiate. Cartridge loaded. Fire." Six Excaliburs appeared, floating in position around him, and fired. An instant later, Gilgamesh was gone, too surprised too react.

Then he went to the Einzbern castle. "Right. Hey there Hercules." He said when he found the giant glaring at him from a window.

Rho Aias appeared, keeping Berserker from grabbing hold of him when the servant leaped out to strangle him. He floated upwards as Berserker fell to the ground. "Excaliblast Septa. Fire." Then he vaporized Berserker. Not even he could withstand six of the swords after all.

He had to knock out Ilya. It was for her own good. Then he just had to find that shard of wood in that antique store a few cities away. If he took out Avalon from the Shirou of this time, then that Shirou could summon Jesus, and that guy not only had the power to fix everything, but would actually do it.

All in all, this was getting to be a very satisfying day.

**End**

**Yeah, ND Shirou from the future is broken that way. He's only halfway looking like Emiya because he uses Word-blades more than he does tracing.**

**Anyway, review you buggers. It feeds me. Also, next chapter shall be more conversations. Joy. Then team Luvia may or may not meet team Ilya. Glorious.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Warning: This chapter contains excessive amounts of awesome. There will be mutated insects, exploding corpses, the Devil's Son's Luck, Lancelot being Lancelot, the rage of angered parents, and Hercules may or may not have just become broken beyond all hope of beatability...by being **_**sane.**_

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Alter glared at Rider. The Tyrant of Knights had not met the servant personally, but Nero had been quite vocal about her exploits, limited as they were this early in the war, and she could quite easily recognize the 'statuesque beauty, blindfolded for reasons unknown, with hair that reached to the ground despite her splendid height'.

Admittedly, the way Nero had described her seemed more than just artistic presentation at times, and Alter decided not to dwell on the possible alternative sexual preferences of one of her bedmates.

So, back to glaring at Rider. "What are you doing here? Shirou, there better be a good explanation as to why there is an enemy servant in our midst." She said, gripping Excalibur Sanguine tighter.

Shirou bit his lip. "It...is complicated."

Alter rolled her eyes. "Try me."

Shirou gestured to Sakura, whom Rider had carried on the way when the pace got too high. "This is Sakura, you've met her before. She cooked breakfast yesterday. She...is a master."

The Tyrant of Knights raised an eyebrow. "Huh. Interesting. First you, then your school idol, that fool of a boy, and now his sister. Any other students from your school that are actually masters I should know about?"

Shirou twitched. It was disturbingly true. He was actually starting to have doubts about some of the more unusual students, but enough of that. He glanced to the side, where Lily proceeded to land from an elegant pirouette. "I know this might seem strange, but for now, Rider isn't an enemy."

Lily tapped her cheek. "And pray tell why?"

Despite being surrounded on all sides by enemy servants, Rider was cool as ice as she replied. "I have no wish. And my master's have already been fulfilled by her other servant. This war is useless to my master now, as her newfound freedom will be for naught if she is killed."

Alter frowned. "Other servant? What other servant?"

"Assassin." Shirou said. "Rider came to her after Shinji died, and Sakura later summoned Assassin."

Lily suddenly stepped beside him, looking around warily for the stealthy servant. "Where? I sense him not." Then she blinked. "Wait, _Assassin?"_

Shirou winced. "She and Sakura...had a falling out."

However, that wasn't what Lily and Alter were focused on. The two swordswomen had shared a strange look, nodded, then turned to him.

Alter's shadow-cloak flickered tensely as she spoke. "This is most unusual, Shirou. We have already fought a Lancer from the first night, yet just this battle we faced an Assassin and another Lancer, and now you speak of another Assassin?"

Lily herself was frowning. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Something monumental was imminent, and if experience was to be trusted, they needed information. Badly. "Tell us more. Especially about your summoning, and how you came to have two servants." She asked Sakura.

Sakura winced. "It was...just a normal summoning. The only difference was that my grandfather sacrificed the majority of his familiars to give the summoning more power. It was a surprise for both of us that Assassin appeared with Rider already contracted to me." She explained.

Lily shook her head. "That...does not help us much."

Saber blinked when she noted what Alter said. "Another Lancer? Are you sure? It may have been another class masquerading as one."

Alter scowled. "I know warriors when I see them. Battle Continuation. Instinct. Speed surpassing Berserker and skill of a warrior true. We are sabers, and that Tohsaka girl has an Archer. That was a Lancer, despite all evidence to contrary."

Lily crossed her arms. "The one I fought called himself an Assassin, yet fought like an excellent saber. He said servant Caster had summoned him as an attempt to cheat in the war. Yet the fact that he allies himself with Alter's opponent suggests that Caster or his master had summoned Lancer too." She shook her head. "This is most unusual."

Nero put a finger to her lips. "Do you think...other masters summoned more than one servant too?"

They all blinked. Even Rider, despite her blindfold, gave off the expression of surprise.

Lily frowned. "Possible. There are always exceptional men and women in each age, and perhaps one or two might have joined the war too, but..." She looked at Sakura. "...apparently you have managed to do so, despite already having bound a servant to you. Doing so should have made you ineligible for another summoning, yet the grail accepted it, and I find that Rider here does not seem at all diminished and weakened for a servant." She turned to Sakura. "Unless your Assassin is dead already?"

Sakura shook her head, still rather wary being around other servants. They were Shirou's yes, but the master didn't always match the servant, and Alter did not exactly suggest purity of soul to her.

Saber breathed deeply. "This...is not normal. What is this war coming to?"

A sound reached the servants' ears.

It was faint, extremely so. Normal humans would have been incapable of hearing it, but they were servants, already originally superhuman, and now empowered by their legends into magnificence. For them, it was possible, and the nuance of the thing was familiar to many of them.

"Impact. A very strong one. Or an explosion." Lily muttered. "Strong enough to carry from the other end of the city."

Alter scowled. "Servants. It has to be. Too far away though. The battle would probably be over by the time we get there. We won't see anything."

Nero looked at Rider, and grinned. "Your Pegasus can probably get there in time. Would you mind?"

Rider gave her a look, and despite her blindfold, everyone present knew she was giving Nero an incredibly scathing glare. The reason was rather obvious.

Shirou sighed. He hadn't heard anything, but he was only human after all. "They won't hurt Sakura, I promise that." He held up his hand, and his command seals pulsed; a warning. "Or else."

Alter rolled her eyes. "We've already agreed not to attack masters, I got it."

For a moment, it seemed that Rider still would not accept, but then her hand shot up, nail gripped tightly, and stabbed herself in the neck.

Those who had not seen her phantasm before (that is, everyone but Nero) were nonetheless shocked despite having known of it.

The blood sprayed out, but stayed in the air, forming a summoning circle from which a magnificent winged steed stepped out from. Rider calmly walked up to it, neck already healed, and mounted it. She gave Shirou a knowing glance, before flying off.

A minute after, Nero spoke up once more. "You know, if there _are _multiple servants being summoned, does that mean there may be more than one wish available?"

Food for thought, that was.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**[Earlier in the day]**

Luvia groaned as they walked through the city, absently reading the directions to the mansion the Edelfelts had built during the third war. Contractors had already been contacted, and they should be working on it and halfway done by the time they got the building.

She winced as each step made her vision shake. The trip via Air-Lancelot had NOT been fun, and even hours later some of the effects still persisted. "You are_ never _flying a plane when I'm on it again."

Lancelot seemed almost oblivious to her, as he jauntily walked beside her in the attire of a jet pilot. It was a brown affair with numerous pouches and pockets and straps attached. The only thing missing was the helmet.

She glanced at Merlin. "And you, what are you doing?"

The wizard was wearing shades to hide his eyes and dressed in a horrendously purple overcoat filled with pockets. His hand was darting out every few seconds or so, catching...insects? "Collecting minions, my dear master. A wizard without minions is an embarrassment. In life, I had homunculi for that. Here, they do not exist, and I doubt Berserker or Rider would appreciate being used as minions, nor do I have enough time to recreate my homunculi. As such, I will have to make do with dumb beasts."

He was catching them at amounts that indicated more than natural phenomenon. He was attracting the insects themselves, beetles mostly. Big ants if he found them. Magecraft probably.

She gave him a long hard stare, before shaking her head and walking faster, trying her best to ignore her headache. Behind her, Siegfried, the only one in spirit form, silently floated by.

The house really was halfway done by the time they got there, and modern amenities were already being installed or brought in. It was confirmed that they would be done by tomorrow morning.

As such, Luvia decided it would be a good idea to scout out the city, and hopefully meet the other masters, and show them just how much they were outclassed by the heir of the Edelfelts, before having her servants initiate a beatdown that would live on in legend. All the servants were ordered back into their battle gear and into spirit form, then she set out into the city.

Then after nearly an hour of wandering around, Lancelot manifested into solidity, grabbed her, and hopped away.

An instant later, a blurred projectile slammed into the ground she had been on, and an explosion like a missile strike erupted, shattering the pavement and scattering chunks of rock in lethal velocities.

Lancelot, for some reason armed in silver armor of a different make than his original ebony plate, batted away the shards with one hand. "Master, servants."

Luvia blinked. It had been so sudden. She had almost _died. _She swallowed her fear, and fury at her would-be-murderer replaced trepidation. "Show the upstart your wrath! Berserker, Rider, slay him!"

Beside her, the two other servants stepped out of spirit form, but they did not charge as she had ordered.

Lancelot, currently in the guise of a helmeted Gawain, sighed. "You misunderstand, my master. Servant_**s**_**.** There is more than one."

Two figures crashed onto the ground ahead of them, and Luvia started shaking as the glory and power inherent in the two figures made itself known.

One was a striking figure in Greek armor, wielding a plain round shield and a glorious spear that was no doubt his noble phantasm. His poise was remarkable, his confidence great, and his very presence spoke of controlled lethality. A warrior king stood before them, from times when kings led from the front, and continued to rule by dint of their strength of arms.

The other one however made even _Rider, _who had invulnerable skin,tense.

He was gigantic. A steel frame bulging with muscles, wearing only an iron kilt and a lion pelt and wielding a slab of flaming jagged stone. He stood tall and proud, a silent figure whose eyes of blood and gold looked at them as a lord would an ant. The other was a warrior born. This was a killer, a being born only to murder and destroy and annihilate all who stood before him.

She gulped. "A Lancer, and a...Saber? Why are they working together?"

Then a voice spoke out of nowhere.

"Seriously? _Another one _summons multiple servants? Oh the hell with this. Berserker, Lancer, take them down. We'll deal with Shirou later." It was a young voice, female, but the fury in it spoke of someone ruthless.

The now-identified Lancer pointed his spear at Lancelot. "The knight's mine. That fine with you?"

The gray giant raised his fiery stone weapon. **"Agreed." **His deep voice rumbled out. **"The swordsman is mine."**

Luvia blinked. "_Berserker? _But...I already have a Berserker!"

The voice from before spoke once more. "Oh boo-hoo, someone broke the rules. Get in line. Someone summoned four sabers. Deal with it."

"Four...Sabers?" The idea seemed ludicrous to her, but considering that she herself had summoned three and her opponent had two...

Merlin proceeded to turn to the side, aim at Luvia and a point a mile away, and _casted._

There were no words, simply a burst of prana and the spells of a master wizard. From his voluminous robes, a dozen dragonflies darted out, then proceeded to _change._

A moment, they were normal-sized. The next, they were gigantic, horse-sized monstrosities mutated nearly beyond recognition into lethal insectoid monsters. They darted out, far faster than their ungainly size would suggest, heading for where he was pointing at, and from his finger, a beam of light fired out, a golden line that a blurry figure from afar barely dodged, but not without loosing his own projectile.

His other hand, the one pointed at Luvia, shot out an arcing web of energy that encompassed his master in a sphere of bluish-white energy.

The projectile, a massive arrow more in common with a spear, darted _around _Merlin, crashed into the web, pierced halfway through, then was snapped in half on the shaft by the sphere.

Silence.

Luvia gulped. Absently, she noted that the sphere was not a single orb, but multiple ones all rotating in different directions. It cost much less than a single orb of protection, yet provided more defense due to the different rotations that all combined together into a motion that dissipated an incredible amount of force and energy.

Orbs of prana existed in this age, but not to this level. It was simple Magecraft, not magic from the Age of the Gods, yet Merlin's skill was so great that he turned a simple mystery into something on that level through slight modifications and absurd skill. Prana was not the problem. Concentration was. To envision the process was mindboggling. To make it a reality, and maintain the focus needed for the precise movements of each individual sphere, was the very thing that made Merlin a magus of legend.

The wizard turned to her, and gone was the joking old man. Here and now, Merlin Satanspawn, The Wizard of Camelot, looked into her eyes, and she flinched at the sight of the firepits that were his eyes. "We have a sneaky Archer who isn't beyond attacking the master. I can't focus on protecting you. It'll be for the best if you were somewhere else."

She nodded, and another spell from him had a portal appearing below her feet. She didn't have time to scream before she sunk down and disappeared back into the mansion.

The other two nodded at him.

"That was wise of you." Siegfried said. He unlimbered Gram, and one of the most powerful of enchanted swords gleamed in the night, a lethal edge of shining death long as he was tall. "Now, we can fight to our fullest."

Lancelot nodded. "Agreed." Then he grabbed two street signs, and black energy enveloped them, blood-red veins spreading until it was a nightmarish parody of its old self. It was shaped like a street sign, it _was _a street sign, but the black smoky prana around it blurred the shape, and it flickered constantly, giving off the feeling of double-sided axes instead. The contrast between his pure white armor and the nightly weapons made it seem worse somehow.

They charged, and the two enemy warriors braced themselves as Merlin took to the air.

And so, battle was started.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Merlin kicked off the ground, magecraft propelling him into the air and towards the Archer from afar. Ahead of him, the dragonflies were being fired upon by the servant.

The spear-like arrows fired again and again, at a rate incomparable to men of today. They lanced at the dragonflies and pierced them with nary any resistance. Despite being monstrous beasts empowered to the limits of their biology through transformation magic, they were no match against a noble phantasm.

It was also exactly the reason why none of them had yet to fall. The arrows were so powerful that they completely punched through their bodies. It left holes in them, but not a weight that would trouble their flight, and Magecraft and animal savagery enabled the insects to ignore the damage, as all they needed to do was last through the battle anyway.

Then the warrior started thinking smart, and when holes in the wing-muscles were simply repaired, he proceeded to fire at the head instead. Half of the dragonflies fell dead, before suddenly levitating to Merlin's side. The wizard grinned. "I was waiting for that. Now I have an excuse to do _this."_

One of the corpses floated to his hand, and the body curled into a ball and burst into flames, its insides being converted into a cocktail of volatile and lethal chemicals. He propelled it towards the Archer.

The corpse landed meters away from the target, but the resulting explosion as the chemicals inside detonated sent him stumbling from sheer force alone.

Then another one landed right beside him.

"Oh shit."

It exploded into a mass of acid that scattered everywhichway. Archer was only average in terms of agility, the sudden explosion so near to him sent several splashes onto his armor.

He didn't bother unclasping them, simply ripping them off with raw strength and throwing away the pieces of slag. "The hell. That is unlike any kind of transformation magic I've ever seen, and I lived in the age of the gods."

Merlin landed ahead of him, four corpses levitating around him, already curled into a ball and modified, while the other six dragonflies clicked their mandibles angrily. He grinned. "Oh, they could. The mages of that time most definitely had the capability for it. The experience? The knowledge and the skill? The _motivation? _All at the same time? Unfortunately no." He spread his arms, and a score of ants dripped out of his sleeves, along with buzzing hornets that flew out angrily. Then they started changing.

Archer groaned. "Oh Tartarus below, this is going to _suck..."_

Two dozen monstrous ants and another dozen mutated hornets glared angrily at him, and at a mental command, they charged.

Then Archer grinned, and he threw out the sack from his belt. "...not. **Gift of ****Aeolus!" **He proclaimed.

It stayed in the air, its string loosening the opening, which proceeded to let loose a hurricane of wind in all directions except west. Razor wind sliced the bees and dragonflies' wings to shreds, before propelling them away to a messy death or ripping them piece by piece in the air.

The ants however dug deep into the ground, keeping steady even as their chitinous armor was slowly chipped away.

Merlin however stayed determinedly on the ground, the orb of energy from before blocking the wind. He glared at Archer. "Aeolus, keeper of the winds in Greek mythology. He only ever gave the winds in a sealed container to one person. You would be Odysseus, yes?"

The identified servant grimly nodded.

Merlin's eyes burned brighter, and Odysseus' stared in shock at the sight. "You just _had _to ruin the moment, didn't you? Massive beatdown, insects attack, complete with bees! _Bees, _I tell you! It doesn't get more fun than that!" He shook his head disgustedly, and a wave of his hand had the insects blurring before reverting back to normal. "What a waste of prana that was."

Then complex thaumaturgical circles appeared before his palms, five for each hand, with the size growing smaller as the number increased. He pointed at Odysseus. "These are convergers. With these, I could theoretically get through A-rank magic resistance with only my middling spells. You are merely an Archer, with C-rank at the most."

Merlin's eyes flared bright, until it looked like two orbs of heartless fire were in his eye sockets. "You also tried to kill my master. Congratulations. You have just aggravated me. Prepare yourself. _Ventus."_

From his palms burst forth a storm of razor wind, which then proceeded to funnel through the circles, and emerged as a concentrated pillar of wind as wide as a coin that pushed through Aeolus' winds and would have torn holes in Odysseus if it weren't for him leaping away at the last moment.

"_Fulgoris." _Bolts of crackling electricity went through the same process, and tore a line of scorched earth into the ground. All the while as he casted, Merlin stepped forward, moving closer and closer to Odysseus.

"_Fuego." _Searing heat like that from a volcano _melted _the earth, leaving traces of burning rock wherever they went.

Odysseus scowled as he avoided the blazing lines of fire. Hopping to the side, he simultaneously drew and fired his bow, and kept up a steady stream of spear-like arrows.

Before, his arrows could only get halfway through Caster's shield. But that was at distance of a mile. This time, they were _much _closer, and his arrows were being pushed forward by the winds he had unleashed.

They punched cleanly through the sphere, and right before they were about to hit his flesh, Caster _changed._

His flesh danced and shifted, bending and moving in ways that clearly made no sense, bulging inwards or bending in a way bodies were not made to do. Yet the end result was the same: all of his arrows failed to properly hit, either passing through air where once there had been vulnerable flesh or merely grazing his skin, drawing blood but not much else.

Odysseus' scowl deepened. "Shapeshifting?" Then Caster continued with a _"Frigida!", _and he threw himself to the side, avoiding the thin spike of arctic ice.

He hopped to the side, barely avoiding two bolts of lightning. It was maddening. Each of the caster's spells could kill him with a single direct hit, and his normal arrows couldn't hit, despite the bow's enchantment. "Well then, I'll just have to use something stronger then." Another arrow appeared in his hand, but this was a different one.

His other arrows were of wood and steel. This one was of stone, an even larger arrow of gray rock, whose arrowhead glistened with poison unrivaled by anything else he knew. He nocked it, then _broke _it. "Have a taste of this." He fired.

The arrow was not truly _his _noble phantasm per se, but rather, one he had acquired from someone else. Philoctetes, who had inherited Hercules' arrows. Odysseus had stolen half of them from him later in the war, though he had left the bow alone. As such, for a certain cost, he could manifest the arrows of Greece's greatest heroes. As they were merely arrows, breaking them was not a problem. They cost comparatively much to create, but were unlimited, and this one was troublesome enough to require one.

His aim was perfect, his shot faultless, and his arrow overwhelmingly lethal. It was a chest shot, and the arrow he fired was at least three times faster than the ones before. It would completely ignore the sphere, and already, as the arrow went through three fourths of the distance in less than an instant, he could see the fear forming on Caster's face as he realized his fate.

Then _something _slammed into the arrow along the way, and the broken phantasm detonated into shards of poisoned stone that _were _diverted by the sphere.

Odysseus gaped. "What." How? What could possibly have...a corpse. It was one of the giant dragonfly corpses from before. Somehow, despite all the factors involved, enough of the corpse had remained from the razor wind, and had been somehow ended up impacting against the arrow, batting it away and detonating it early.

It was improbable to a degree he couldn't even imagine. It would take luck unlike anything he had ever seen to...

"A gift from my old man." Merlin answered, strangely somber. "Damn him to hell and back, which he rules over. I am my father's son after all, and you know what they say about the Devil and his Luck."

Odysseus paled. "Burn me, you're..." It was enough of a reference to trigger his enemy's identity.

Caster grinned. "Merlin Satanspawn, at your service." The burning hellpits he called eyes twinkled merrily, and Odysseus wondered how he could have missed such a clue.

The Greek shook his head. "By the gods, you are a terrifying person to face." His expression tightened. "I will not fall so easily, however." Another one of Hercules' arrows manifested. "Let us see your cursed luck avert fate once more."

Merlin laughed, and he gestured with his hand. "As welcome as my luck is in battle, in the end, it is luck, unexpected and unpredictable, and only a fool trusts in that. I always come to a battle expecting no help from that. My minions, go keep this Greek from firing that bow."

Then the ground exploded as the ants from before rose out and attacked him. It was all too sudden, and he dropped his arrow, which faded back into prana, before drawing his plain sword and trying to keep the insects away and get some distance between them. "What in Tartarus...you turned these back! I saw you revert them!"

Merlin chuckled. "I have dabbled in nearly every kind of non-clan magic there is. I can't believe you didn't notice the illusion, considering your experiences. But then again, that's only if it's actually affecting _you _isn't it? A veil is another matter entirely."

Despite being an Archer, he was a heroic spirit, and the ants, though they could resist being blown away, had to struggle to keep themselves from doing so along with attack, and in moments, half a dozen were already dead, their heads caved in, slashed open, or cut off.

Then one of the corpses exploded into acid, and he cursed as his sword melted away into slag, and he found himself surrounded within melee range by monstrous ants. He scowled as he willed Aeolus to stop. "Damn you. **The Odyssey: The Laestrygonians." **He proclaimed, activating his second most powerful phantasm.

The winds disappeared as The World Within, the place where the beings of legend lived, gorged out the foes that had slain so many of his men so early in his trip home.

Laestrygonians, the large cannibalistic men of the island of Lamos. They were not actually giants, but rather half-giants, whose inhuman practices had resulted in them turning into an entirely separate species from both men and giants, thus earning them a place in The World Within when they reached a millennia in age.

True to their heritage, they were tall beings, as tall as, or taller, than Hercules, with blood-red skin and beady eyes. Bloody animal skins were their clothes, and held in their hands were weapons of solid rock. They gazed at their surroundings, all two dozen of them, noted the ants, and fell upon them with vigor.

Odysseus, unnoticed, covered himself in a ragged gray cloth, and disappeared from sight. He could summon and dismiss them, but he sure as hell couldn't control them.

Merlin frowned as he gazed at the cannibals, who had finished killing all the ants and were stomping on the remains. "Pity. I kind of liked those." He shrugged, and took out a jar full of beetles. "Probably why I stick to these." He threw it, and when the jar shattered, the beetles grew to epic proportions.

Mandibles and legs grew and lengthened, and their carapaces hardened into a spiky, steely hell. Even the Laestrygonians were given pause when they found themselves facing their own number in abominable beetles who reached their chests in height.

Merlin wiped the sweat from his bow as he gestured to the cannibals. "Destroy them." He turned around and propelled himself back to the others, as behind him, steel mandibles bit into cannibal flesh, and stone weaponry attempted to batter iron carapaces.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hector stepped up to a lamppost as the white knight charged at him. His spear blurred, and the structure fell to the ground, separated into several lengths by the spear.

Lancelot's eyes widened when Hector picked one up, and silver energy flowed out, like smooth liquid steel, covering the rod and turning it into a gleaming silver spear. Hector pulled back his arm, and let loose.

Lancelot had faced spear-throwers before. Heck, he had faced champions or abhuman monsters that specialized in the skill. But he had never faced _this._

The moment the spear left Lancer's hand, it wasn't a length of sharp metal. It was death in the form of swift, piercing doom, a projectile faster than anything he had ever seen, that took considerable skill and speed to dodge, and yet ended up turning the area it hit into a wide crater from the impact.

"The. Hell." Lancelot said in shock. There was no activated noble phantasm. It was _skill _that had turned that weapon into such a lethal missile. No. It was more than that. Due to his phantasm, any weapon he touched seemed as if he had been using it for years, yet he would never have been able to do something like that with a spear. It was skill and power and lethality turned into an actualized mystery over time in history.

This was a legend standing before him. A spear-thrower of a caliber nigh-unmatched even amongst heroic spirits. The question was: _who?_

Then Lancer picked up two at once, turning the two bars of metal into deadly spears, and launched the two missiles one after the other.

Lancelot charged, breaking and throwing one axe-like street sign to divert one, and simply ducking under the arc of the other. Once more the Lancer transformed harmless metal bars into spears, and launched them at him.

Lancelot hopped to the side to avoid one, then screamed a wordless cry as he slammed the remaining axe-facsimile with both hands onto the other spear. An explosion of black and silver erupted, and in the end, the shattered remnants of the spear scattered to the side as he Broke and threw his axe at Lancer.

The Lancer _moved. _He could have been an Archer with how lethal his projectiles were, but in the end, he had been summoned as Lancer, and no Lancer worth his salt would have less than A-class agility, and it showed.

It was the first time Lancer unleashed his full speed in the fight, and with it, he dodged the thrown weapon with a single step, grabbed two of the rods, threw them, then grabbed the last two, and _charged._

The two lances were blurs in the night, and Lancelot once more dodged the first, and found himself once more unable to do the same to the other. There was a method to the way his enemy threw them. He could dodge one, but the other had to be blocked. It was an anticipation of his movements, of superhuman planning ability found rarely in history.

Lancelot himself rarely bothered with that. To follow his instinct and sixth sense was his forte, as was using his admittedly incredible skill and physical ability to back it up and make an overwhelming victory.

He grabbed it. Despite all the signs that pointed out what a stupid idea that was, he grabbed it. It shook in his arms, its force nearly forcing him to the ground, but in the end, he let himself give ground to bleed off its speed and momentum, rotating once and ending up in a stance fitting for a master staff or spear-user, the once-silver spear now a nightly weapon of fury.

His eyes narrowed as the Lancer got into melee range. Big mistake.

Lancelot _blurred. _Lancer, who had been expecting less, found that Lancelot had been holding back.

Lancer's spears thrust at Lancelot at an incredible rate, becoming blurs that seemed to rain down from everywhere. Lancelot matched his speed and strength, and went beyond. He stepped and wove through the barrage of attacks, before snapping out the spear in a magnificent maneuver that almost took Lancer straight in the eye.

Lancer found himself in the defensive, barely able to keep up with the string of overwhelmingly lethal attacks that pushed his body to its limits in its attempt to _stay alive._

A thrust to the heart barely blocked, then a deceptively subtle movement brought the shaft slamming hard onto his knee. It didn't break, but he reflexively bent, and barely brought up his other spear in time to avoid getting hamstringed.

Then Lancer found a plated boot slamming into his gut, and he rolled with the movement, ending up blessedly away from his opponent.

The two sized each other up with newfound respect at each other's lethality.

Lancelot nodded at him. "Your skill at spear-throwing is immense. Impressive even among us heroes. Close-range however goes entirely to me."

Lancer tapped his knee. It was sore, but worked as fine as ever. "You fight extremely well. I'm surprised that a Berserker would have such skill." He shook his head. "You remind me too much of my killer."

"Achilles, yes?" Lancelot suggested, and he laughed at Lancer's look of shock. "Don't be so surprised. It was not so hard to figure out. Greek armor? Spear-throwing at a level that shames any other I have seen with but converted weapons? The legend of Hector, whose missiles were blocked by only one person in the entire war came to mind immediately."

The identified servant cracked his neck. "So it seems." Then the golden spear from before appeared in his grip, and he launched it with all the force he could muster, not bothering with any more banter, intent on silencing one who had discovered his identity. **"Roaring Spear!"**

_This _was a noble phantasm. The air rippled at its passing, as if its very presence was destruction incarnate, and to Lancelot, his senses labeled it as nothing less than certain death that couldn't be blocked by anything other than another true phantasm.

So he didn't bother doing so. He dodged. His body moved by instinct, throwing itself to the side by more than a dozen meters, going through a wall to get to safety, and the instant he did so, the spear passed by his previous location.

The shockwave buffeted him and sent him crashing into the next wall, almost cracking it to breaking. A second later, he heard the screeching sound of cement being torn asunder, before the detonation of the spear's energies as its attack reached its crescendo.

A second after his ears stopped ringing, he leaped out, and marveled the destruction it had caused.

The carnage it had wreaked bordered on anti-army. A meters-wide trench that stretched on for a fifth of a mile had torn the street asunder, ending in a gigantic crater that spoke of a brutal ending for anyone caught under the attack.

But...the energies he had felt were too little. The prana put into the spear, it could not have caused all of...his eyes widened. No. It was not the prana. What he had been witnessing before was _scrap _being used as spears. This...this was Hector's greatest weapon. This was the spear that none other than Ajax could block. Prana was not needed. If his skill was so great that concrete would shatter into dust from thrown scrap, what would a _legendary_ spear do? All that destruction...it was a _side effect._

Lancelot looked back at Hector. "Bloody damn. No wonder no one could take a hit from you. How did Ajax survive that?"

Another spear appeared in Hector's hand. It was a real spear, not converted scrap, but not a noble phantasm either. "I don't know myself. I think it surprised him as much as it did me. But enough of that. Back to your doom."

The spear in his hand _cracked. _He had Broken it. Then he threw it, before backpedaling, the golden spear in his hand once more, the shield attached to his left.

Lancelot didn't bother holding back. His full speed, A-rank at that, let him avoid it easily. He barely felt the shockwave as he grabbed some scraps along the way and wielded them as he would a pair of longswords. With his phantasm, there was no difference. They might as well be what wielded them as.

Then he activated mad enhancement, and as he lost his sanity, so too did the finer control of For Another's Honor. The pure armor of Gawain faded away into his true ebony plate, blurred as it was with his inky black prana.

"**RAAARGH!" **He screamed, all his will now devoted to the destruction of Lancer. His speed, originally matching that of Lancer's, now exceeded him, and he was upon the enemy servant in moments.

Hector frowned. "Madness enhancement? Are you a fool? You lose all your skill tha-" His eyes widened as Berserker, upon reaching him, proceeded to open up that with a flurry of blows that were enhanced by his madness, yet _retained _all his skill.

This time, it was too much. All of Hector's attempts to defend were for naught. Lancelot was too fast, too strong, too _skilled_, for him to have any hope of emerging unscathed.

His shield, empowered as it was to a hero's tool, was sundered with nearly two dozen blows that were brought down in but a few seconds, and all over his body, armor was broken and shattered and pierced, and cuts and lacerations appeared where there was no armor to guard.

It made _no sense. _Berserkers fought with nothing but fury and instinct, unless...Hector groaned mentally as he realized what he faced. _'Unless your skills are so ingrained into your body that they ARE instinct. Truly, you resemble my killer in so many ways.' _

It hurt his pride to admit it, but he was going to _die _if this continued. "Hercules!" He shouted. The son of Zeus _couldn't _be struggling with his opponent...

...right?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The two swordsmen faced each other head-on.

The two had an incredibly similar combat doctrine: charge the enemy, and the gods have mercy on their souls, for they were unmatched in combat. True to form, it had taken treachery to kill these two heroes, and now, two warriors who had been unstoppable forces in their lives faced each other on the field of battle.

They slammed into each other like landslides, the ground shaking and cracking with the impact. Siegfried's weapon crashed into the axe-sword, and miraculously, the weapon held against the dragon-slaying blade amid an explosion of black fire.

Between the warriors however, Hercules was most definitely the stronger, and Siegfried's feet shattered the pavement as he struggled to hold up against the demigod's strength.

The Norseman grinned. "Been a long time since I found someone stronger than me."

The Greek's gold and crimson eyes looked into his. **"You will find many more of that caliber before this war is over. If you survive that is, and I say this not in jest: I doubt you will walk away from this encounter." **Then he pushed forward, knocking Siegfried into a roll.

The Rider sprang into a leap from the overturn, Gram gleaming in the night. "We'll see about tha-"

"**Nine Lives." **Hercules announced, and Siegfried had just enough time to look confused before...

The world blurred. Impacts thudded into him, so fast he could barely perceive them, at an amount that should be impossible in such a short amount of time. They were sent with all the strength of the son of Zeus, amid detonations of hellfire with each strike, at speeds that _made no sense._

All his momentum was gone, turned back by the force of the blows, and he crashed into and through a wall, digging a furrow into the ground as he did so, the wall collapsing on top of him to cover him in rubble.

Hercules looked at the pile, before shaking his head and turning around to aid his comrades. **"I have never been bested in combat. With my sanity restored, I am beyond any other servant. It is a pity you were to face me. You could have died a more glorious death." **He had Odysseus to thank for such an occasion.

**[Flashback]**

"Why?" Odysseus asked. "Why do you _not _want Hercules sane? To summon him as a Berserker is the height of folly. He needs to be sane to utilize his noble phantasms to the fullest, so why not? Especially when we face such admittedly terrifying foes?"

Ilya fidgeted under the King of Ithaca's gaze. "...because he'll be angry."

Hector blinked. "Angry?"

Ilya shook as she recalled the memories. "It _hurt _you know. Summoning him I mean. His every breath hurt, and he had to _fight. _I know it was petty and stupid, but I just wanted vengeance at _something, _so I keep him insane even now as punishment. If I let him think now, he'll..."

Then Odysseus took her in his arms, gently rubbing her back and patting her hair. "He would not dare. I understand why you did it. Emotions get the better of us at times, but you have to understand. If we are to stand a chance of facing the Sabers head-on, we will need his full capability. We have to try. If he dares to lay a hand on you, we will put a stop to it, and we will continue with our plans with him as a madman."

She hiccupped, then looked at Hercules and gave him back his sanity with a thought, before quickly putting her two new servants between her and Berserker.

Silence, as the two Trojan War veterans watched the greatest hero of Greece retain his mind, for the light of his eyes to return, and a proud intelligence settle in his gaze.

Hercules turned to her, and when he spoke, his voice reverberated in her chest. **"That you would think so little of me shames me, my little master." **He knelt, and held out a hand.

Tentatively, Ilya stepped out from behind Odysseus, and she halfway flinched as he brought his hand to her hair, then rubbed it affectionately. **"I know why you kept me mad, and hold no ill will against you. All my hatred goes to the father who left you and that wretch of a magus who forced you to suffer my presence so early."**

Odysseus blinked. "What do you speak of?"

Hercules looked at him. **"The head of her family forced her to summon me...two months before the grail would start supporting out existence. Then I had to defend her from the beasts of a forest." **

The Ithacan gasped, and looked at Ilya with horror. "Without grail support? The pain from that...by the gods..." His voice deepened to a growl. "Someone is going to pay _dearly _for that."

Hector himself was visibly shaking in fury. "They would do this to a _child?! _Judgement must be had for this. There is no other reasonable alternative."

They came from different times and nations, but in the end, they had all been fathers, and perhaps, that was what had bound them to Ilya. Their master, a _child, _had suffered, and the parent in them demanded nothing less than the world in compensation for what she had experienced, and they would give it to her, by force from the cold dead hands of those that stood before them if necessary.

Later, in a demonstration of the single noble phantasm he gained by being sane on a tree, did Ilya understand what happens when a being who was perfect by dint of being overwhelmingly fast and strong in the first place decided to learn technique.

The tree seemed to just _disappear _in their eyes.

**[Flashback End]**

Hercules took several steps away, before a large chunk of concrete shattered itself on the back of his head. He turned around, and raised an eyebrow at the sight of the unharmed Rider. **"How?" **He asked, surprised at why exactly his enemy wasn't a blood-spattered mess.

Siegfried cracked his neck. "I actually feltthat." He remarked, then started laughing. "I **felt **that!" Then he bit down on his tongue, and he grinned at Hercules as a red haze settled over his eyes at the taste of blood. "Oh, this will be _fun. _And just so you know, I'm actually a _Rider." _He informed him, before the berserk madness settled over him completely.

Then he **roared, **the air shaking the force of his shout, which sounded more like a beast's than a man's, and slammed into Hercules with the fury of a berserk Norseman.

Nine Lives manifested once more, yet the nine strikes that would _annihilate _any other servant merely staggered Siegfried and failed to penetrate his skin, the black flames licking ineffectively across his frame, before leaping forward once more in a screaming rage and started meeting Hercules blow for blow.

For once, Hercules found himself confused, for this time, he found the situation reversed. His blows, mighty as they were and infused with the black fires of hell, were for some reason useless on the white-haired servant, while Rider's runeblade unfailingly cut through his God Hand like it wasn't even there. There was just no resistance. Such a thing spoke of a weapon of legend beyond nearly anything he could think off. Here he was, the servant of fury, fighting sane, while a Rider of all things was berserkering and screaming at him in mad-dog fury.

And yet, he would not falter in his task. Again and again they traded blows, Nine Lives on his jagged stone axe-sword to Gram's razor edge. The ground around them was shattered and pulverized as they stomped on the ground and their misses claimed the earth.

Craters were formed from a glancing hit, then were deepened as their errant strikes gouged deeper holes.

Siegfried was unfailingly batted around, and Hercules became accustomed to hitting him with every sizable object he could get his free hand on, whether it was a chunk of torn pavement, a bench, or a car.

Despite all this, he was untiring, and continued to keep on and attack despite the punishment that would have killed other servants a hundred times over. It was maddening.

Hercules didn't know how long this had been going on, only that he was actually starting to feel rather weary from all the wounds he had taken from the berserk Rider's legendary sword.

Then he heard Hector cry out. "Hercules!"

There was _panic _in his voice. He could only imagine what kind of Berserker Hector had ended up facing, if he himself had found a _Rider _of all things matching him blow for blow and beyond. Suppressing a grunt of pain as his attempt to grab Rider earned him another painful and deep laceration, Hercules tightened his grip.

His entire body by now was covered in cuts and gashes, many of them bleeding extremely heavily. Battle continuation kept him going, and grunting as the greatsword slashed into his stomach once more, Hercules grabbed Rider with both hands, and threw him away with all his considerable might.

The enemy servant was propelled high and far with his throw, but Hercules didn't bother noting this. He turned and ran in Hector's direction, and found himself not a moment too early, as it seemed the white knight had for some reason become covered in inky darkness upon activation of madness enhancement, and was somehow _retaining _his skills.

Truly, this Grail War seemed unlike all others before it. Heroes even he would consider mighty walked the battlefield prolifically, and their power was tremendous and terrifying to behold.

With a great leap, he launched himself upon the black knight, and the enemy Berserker rolled backwards, avoiding his frame as it crushed and shattered the ground he landed on. He turned his weapon upon the knight, activating his signature phantasm once more.

Nine Lives manifested, and his strikes broke the sound barrier as they proceeded to strike out nine times in what he thought would be a fatal attack.

It was not to be.

The black knight _moved. _There was no other way to describe him other than perfection. His twin blades moved up at incredible speeds and met Hercules' strikes with his own. Speed and technique, strength and instinct, all of it melded together into a maneuver that ended with his longswords shattering and him being blown away from the force of the blows, but ultimately standing up none the worse for wear aside from several cracked and shattered parts of his armor.

Hercules shook his head in astonishment. **"This war...amazes me. Has the grail been saving up the truly glorious for this one war? It would be the only explanation for such a collection of might and glory."**

Hector spat out a wad of blood. "Honestly, I just wish I had hit that guy with Roaring Spear. My insides are killing me."

Then Rider caught up to them, jogging beside the black knight, his berserk rage gone. He grinned at Hercules. "I have a headache, and my body feels sore. What have you been hitting me with?"

Beside him, the inky darkness faded from the knight and his armor turned white once more as the Caster landed beside him.

Then Odysseus showed himself by loosening the ragged gray cloth, glaring at the three enemy servants.

Merlin pointed upwards, and the five reflexively looked up, catching sight of what seemed to be a purple-haired woman riding a flying horse spying on them. "Another time perhaps? When enemies aren't spying on us?" The wizard suggested.

For the three Hellenists, it was not their decision to make. "Master?" Odysseus asked.

"Go. We'll finish this some other time." Ilya's voice spoke out, and with a nod, the servants dispersed into spirit form and disappeared.

High above, Rider, who had seen about last third of the battles, couldn't help but marvel at the monsters summoned for this war and how they could be beaten.

"Hercules. The son of Zeus himself. And he couldn't even break that swordsman's skin." Those were the most terrifying to her, but the others, the great spearman, the Berserker knight, Odysseus, and that Caster whose talent at Shapeshifting and transformation broke belief, were no pushovers either.

"How are we going to survive in a war with these monsters?" She muttered, before urging the Pegasus back to her master.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A weathered ship pulled onto the docks.

The ancient wearily pulled himself up, nodding to the captain, then stepping down the gangplank to the city, having already paid the man at the start of the trip.

After him came the two servants, and the two, upon coming down, breathed a sigh of relief upon coming back on solid land.

Samson fidgeted with his hair, which was now in a polished, bronze color. "I look stupid."

Moses shook his head. "Can't take any chances. You're incredibly easy to recognize, and the moment they do, they'll aim for your hair, and even just a third of a foot cut off will end up crippling you for the war. Can't have that, so I bronzed it and made it as tough as I possibly can. Deal with it."

The Wrathbringer of God sighed, before looking at the ancient. "I'm surprised they'd let you set foot on the ship at all. The Mark made the captain recognizeyou, and I'm pretty sure he wanted to just kick you off and be done with it."

The abomination looked at him, and chuckled wearily, as if remembering a bad joke. "Since time immemorial, I have found that those who have faced incredible hardships in their lives typically have little to no faith in the lord of heaven. If nothing else, greed helps them ignore the fact that they are helping an affront to the eyes of God."

Moses spat on the ground. "And humanity is all the more pitiful for it. Let us go Samson. Today, we separate from you, murderer. May the Lord have mercy on our enemies, for we shall sunder the godless fools."

The two dematerialized, then moved out and into the city.

Cain, the first murderer, whose every breath was suffering and death, wearily hobbled forward, hoping with all that was left of his withered heart that the wish was not a sham, that he could finally _end himself._

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The magus stared at the summoning array he had created. He looked to the sides, where he could feel the connectors he had been laying every half a dozen miles or so all the way during the flights from India and Greece converging at this point.

The feat had given him a horrible headache and a body that felt like it had been it the sauna for a day or two too long.

He looked back at the array.

It didn't decide to suddenly highlight any potential mistakes he may have made that would keep the two days of constant casting and near mind-breaking calculations and Word-combinations from being a waste.

He sighed. "Who's idea was it to maximize all possibilities again? I was already in _India _goddammit, with the hero's own freaking arrow! I could have ended up with a belief-upgraded _Indian _hero, but no, I have to treat this like a D&D game and munchkinize as much as I feasibly could." He groaned, looked at the circle, which was horribly, horribly complex, filled with not just typical summoning wards, but also numerous Runes and even more Words.

If the Word-combination array he had pulled out of his ass worked, and the connectors he had laid down did their trick and channeled the presence of the marked lands, then this location was, for all intents and purposes to the Grail, the center of both India and Greece.

He scowled. "Oh fuck this shit, just get it over with you dumbass." He threw the catalysts at the array; a bronze shard of a shield, an ancient arrow from the age of legends. Then he poured all his prana into it, and he couldn't help but laugh when the resulting flash ended up making the plane pilots he had hypnoti-err..._hired_ on the other end of the field stumble in surprise.

Then he saw the result, and he rubbed his eyes to make sure he was seeing right. He was, and he chuckled at the realization of what had just happened. "Oh this is freaking rich. I am never regretting min-maxing ever again."

Two figures stood before him, sizing each other up. One, a young man with a shock of white hair, body covered in black and gold armor, a flamingly red fur cape flapping on his back.

The other, a tall, almost seven feet tall figure in ancient Greek armor, not just masterwork, but the work of an unparalleled smith. If he had summoned right, then he was looking at the work of a god of the forge.

The Greek tightened his grip on his spear. "What is the meaning of this?"

The magus laughed. "Well, this is interesting. I hardly think I'm all that good of a magus, certainly not strong enough to actively summon two from such a simple attempt."

The gold and black-armored Indian looked at the Greek hero beside him. "Then how would you explain the two of us?"

"A fluke." The magus answered.

The Greek grinned. "It's a glorious fluke then, for you have summoned the greatest of hero of Greece."

"You're not." The Indian commented, and the Greek turned to glare at him.

"You would question me? Careful with what comes out of your mouth, lest I break your face and be done with you." The Greek declared.

"Are you Hercules?" The magus retorted, making the Greek frown. "You're not then."

"Karna." The Indian spoke, and the two stared at him. "I am Karna."

Silence, as the Greek found basic information of his foe, his senses, which before spoke to him of merely a 'good' warrior, found himself tensing in the presence of what might _possibly _be his equal.

In the end, the Greek decided it mattered not, and he breathed deeply. "To reveal your name so openly..." He stood straight and puffed his chest. "A true Greek cannot refute such honor. I will not be outdone! I am Achilles! Greatest hero of the Trojan War!"

Karna nodded. "That's true." He turned to the magus. "Will we have to fight each other for the honor of being your servant then?" Beside him, Achilles grinned as his body thrummed in anticipation of a glorious battle. And right after summoning too!

Then the magus sent them both a look that actually gave them pause. "No fighting. I have yet to sleep for two days straight messing with the laws of the war so that I would summon a powered-up hero no matter which catalyst activated. Now that I have _two, _I'm not going to pass up the chance to curbstomp this war. If you two are going to fight, it'll be _after _everyone else has been defeated. Understand?"

The two blinked.

"Messing with the war?" Achilles asked tentatively.

The magus nodded. "Yes. Do you two feel any different than a normal summon?"

The Greek frowned, then blinked at what he found. He grinned. "Ohoho, what is this? More phantasms?" He clenched his fist. "The body's more powerful too."

Karna nodded. "Same here. My vimana is available, as is Parashu and Vijaya. How?"

The magus laughed. "You two stand before Henry Hailmark," he gave them a bow "Word-mage and adventurer for the experience at your service. I am pleased to find that the shit I pulled out of my ass _worked."_

Achilles crossed his arms. "There is still the matter of supplying us with prana. Are you exceptional in that too?"

Henry laughed once more. "I have a plan in place for that already. You two will love it. Also..." He picked something up from the ground. "Celebratory wine! To me, for succeeding in getting around mechanics that the Wizard Marshall and three infamous family heads had made!" He pulled off the cork with a quick application of reinforcement, before chugging a third down.

Achilles shrugged, and took the wine as it was passed to him, chugged half of what was left, and passed it to Karna, who finished it all.

Karna looked at the master. "What about you? What is your wish?"

Henry blinked at him, then he shrugged, and nonchalantly, "Eternal youth, one that I can turn off, because as enjoyable as this world can be, it will all get boring eventually. I'm not going to fall for that clause like all the other idiots."

The white-haired warrior raised an eyebrow. "All true. You wish to experience all that is possible to experience. You're an adventurer. Strangely enough, no regrets as to your past, nothing at all you want to change, either."

The master nodded.

"But there's more." Karna added.

"I want to see an old project of mine, see how well he's gotten, and have a deathmatch to figure out who's better." Henry admitted.

Karna nodded. "Also true."

Silence.

Achilles chuckled. "I have a strange master."

Henry waved him off. "Bah! You should see some of my friends! Now let's go, that plane won't board by itself. I'll be taking a nap, and I'll put the mana-absorbing array on you _after _I get some sleep." He yawned, and trudged off in the direction of the hypnotized pilots. "Here's hoping we have enough fuel. Hypnotized blokes don't tend to think quite as well as they normally do..." He muttered.

Achilles looked at the son of the sun god. "Just out of curiosity, what is your wish?"

Karna shook his head. "None. I have no regrets."

Silence, before Achilles chuckled. "You're honest about that. That's rather unusual."

"What about you?" Karna asked.

The soldier of fury laughed. "I've always wondered what it would be like to raise a family. I've already earned a place in legend. Perhaps...a new chance at life? This time a long peaceful one, instead of a short, but admittedly glorious one?"

Karna smiled. "A good wish. Perhaps I should try that too, if I win. From what the grail tells me, the world of today has no caste, and your worth is decided entirely on your own capabilities."

Achilles chuckled as he put an arm around Karna and the two walked to the plane. "Oh, that will be the day. Our fight will shake the very earth itself, of that I have no doubt. But before that, we shall see our enemies fleeing before us in terror, for our glory is like a bonfire to their candles!"

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**Nearly ten thousand words of pure awesome. Enjoyed that? Then review. I received a lackluster number last time. It worries me, for reviews feed me. You don't want me to starve, do you?...**

**I don't mean it literally of course (or do I?). It was just a surprise to have only sixty after repeatedly having over a hundred.**

**Anyway, let's ignore my complaints for now and focus on the story.**

**Yes, I DID just have Henry summon, of all things, Achilles and KARNA. There shall be many shenanigans between those two. I mean, one's a saintly humble warrior who has a nuclear spear in his armory. The other's an incredibly proud invulnerable (except for his heel) large ham. Good luck figuring out which one to watch out for, enemy servants.**

**Anyway, how were the servants? Odysseus actually has yet to reveal all his phantasms, and Merlin is kinda chaos incarnate around here and makes his Eye of the Mind (planning ahead through experience) confused as all hell. Lancelot kinda bones anyone at close range, and Siegfried IS going to have bruises later. It's just that the dick also has battle continuation from being a resident of Valhalla. Yes. Seriously. Being a Norseman hero enables you get stronger even after you die, because they're awesome that way.**

**Also, congrats to Bigreader for recognizing how I modified Merlin from a son of an incubus to outright Satan. Because everything's better with antichrists. And devilishly evil luck of course. Think of it as Lancelot's blessing of the faeries, only he has a base Luck of C and an A+ in the blessing of the devil.**

**I'll be posting the servant stat sheets in a different 'story' when I have time and have managed to properly settle the stat sheets. For now, hopefully the lack of information won't ruin it.**

**Review. It feeds me.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Not much action here, but not all chapters can have battles. Next chapter WILL though.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

The wind was the first sign of Rider's presence.

At first it was a small breeze, barely noticeable.

A second later, it had turned into a gust, and by the time Shirou had turned to face the source, it was a gale that shook the treebranches, and the wingbeats of her legendary mount was audible.

The sight of the Pegasus couldn't help but awe him. And how could it not?

It was a beast straight out of a legend, a pure white steed, with wings that seemed to envelop his vision with its size and shining with the light of a star. It was a noble steed with its own proud mind, and he wondered what kind of hero Rider was, for the Pegasus to have allowed her to use it as a mount.

The Pegasus flew in front of them, then hovered and lowered itself the ground, disappearing without a trace as Rider dismounted.

Nero grinned at the sight of her. "So, what did you find?"

The statuesque woman seemed to frown. "Something dire."

Alter, now clad in a different black dress from before, crossed her arms. "Well, what is it then?" She demanded.

"There were six servants in that battle." Rider stated.

The group blinked in surprise.

"...six?" Lily said tentatively. "How many...?"

"Two." Rider answered.

Silence.

Shirou sighed. "Tohsaka-san isn't going to like this."

He just _knew _there was going to be hell to pay when she finds out that _three _other masters had summoned more servants than her.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The walk back was tense.

Lily and Alter had just fought a battle that by all logic could not have happened. He had been _killed _by a Lancer, but apparently Alter had fought one, and Rider had witnessed another one in combat with _five_ other servants.

There was Rider, whom none of his servants trusted. Saber and Nero had witnessed her aid Assassin, who, by some miraculous fluke he had yet to figure out, had had her phantasm _fail _against him.

There was also Sakura, who spent the entire time at his side, one hand clutching his wrist as the group travelled back to his house.

When they got there however, another problem reared its head.

"You! What took you so long?"

Rin was there.

The pretty, pig-tailed girl stood in front of the gate, hands to her waist and glaring at him at some offense he had yet to figure out. She pointed a finger at him. "Today's the day, you know?"

Shirou blinked. "Uhh, what?"

Then Archer materialized beside her, and he understood. Her servant must have been recovering in her house all this time. It would explain why the sabers had caught no sight of him at all ever since that night. Apparently, since he was recovered, their deathmatches could begin.

Nervously, he rubbed the back of his head, giving out a weak laugh. "Ah...about that..."

Rin frowned, stepping forward. "About what? Are you trying to back...who is that?" She asked in shock, noticing the extra figures in the group.

Sakura was recognizable. Rider however...

Shirou fidgeted. "Err..."

"She better not be what I think she is, Emiya." Rin said dangerously.

The purple-haired servant turned to her. "I am Rider, Sakura's servant."

Rin twitched. Then she palmed her face and sighed deeply. It seemed that Shirou's stupidity had no limit. "Seriously Emiya? I can understand not attacking the _master, _but the servant too? You know a certain number of servants need to die for the grail to work, and we can't just go around sparing-"

"That will not be a problem." Rider said.

Rin frowned and crossed her arms. "And why not?"

Alter rolled her eyes. "Because apparently, magus, Shirou is not the only master to have summoned multiple servants." Then she smirked haughtily at Rin. "Strange, isn't it? Are you _sure _you are an excellent magus? Because you seem to be incapable of living up to the standards others have."

Lily jabbed her elbow at Alter. "Now that was just mean." She whispered.

Shirou sighed as Rin's face turned an unhealthy shade of red. Right. Nothing going well at all...

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rin, paced back and forth across the room. "So you're telling me that you" she pointed at Shirou "summoned four sabers, you" Sakura "contracted Rider and summoned Assassin, who she got into an argument with and is on the loose. The master of Herakles now has a Lancer and an Archer, and some other master has three servants too?"

Nero nodded, smiling. "Pretty much. Truly, this grail shall be glorious beyond any other before! Isn't it wonderful?"

Rin frantically waved her arms. "No it is not! Do you have any idea how dangerous this war just got? That's what? Fifteen servants? This is more than double the usual number! Four servants isn't a sure win now! You can't just go around looking for battles anymore. You might actually _lose."_

Saber shook her head. "I find that idea ludicrous. I know who my..." She glanced at Lily and Alter "...allies, are, and I have no doubt that we can match any servant we face in a straight battle. While caution is obviously required now, I still have no doubt of our victory. It will merely take longer."

Rin looked ready to pull her hair. "None of this makes any sense! How did they summon more servants, much less support them? Emiya I can understand. He's like a dynamo! The others? How did Einzbern even summon two more after she's already summoned Herakles? Unless..." Then she paled, and started shaking her head. "No. That's crazy. It can't possibly be..." She looked at Shirou's innocently confused face, and growled low in her throat. "...right. This is probably all your fault."

The sword incarnation blinked. "Me?"

Rin went into another one of her 'lecturing' poses. "Four grail wars. Every single one had seven servants, until you joined in. You summoned _four _sabers. You broke the war. I read up somewhere that the grail may actually be sentient, that its core was made from an Einzbern Homunculus. The only probable explanation is that it found out what you did, and set the bar higher. Now..." She sighed. "We're probably going to start seeing more servants popping out of the woodwork. Twenty eight is the probable number."

She sat down on a chair tiredly. "Still doesn't explain how it supplies that many servants. I mean, it's been costing me much less to maintain Archer now, so the grail's probably picking up more of the slack than usual to enable multiple servants to one master, but where does it get the energy?"

"Umm...has there been a winner in the other four wars?" Sakura asked nervously.

Rin frowned. "No. Why?"

The plum-haired girl suggested meekly, "Maybe...it's been saving up all that energy? If no one uses them up for a wish, and it still gathers energy each interval, doesn't that mean that each grail war's prana just gets stored into the grail?"

Lily put a finger to her lips. "Hmm, that...actually explains a lot of things."

Then Rin brightened. "Wait, that means..." Then she started cackling to herself, and Shirou honestly started worrying for her mental health.

"Uhh, Rin? Are you alright?" He asked, snapping her out of...whateverit was.

She stood up. "Yeah, better than fine. Never mind the duels. It's nothing but a bad idea now. I'm going back to my house to summon more servants!"

"Oh." Shirou stood up. "Do you want me to come with you? It's dangerous out there with all these servants running around."

She blinked, then blushed and waved him off. "I-I know that! I'll be fine though." She stuttered.

He nodded. "Oh. Okay then. Just be careful okay? It'll be really bad if you get hurt."

Her blush deepened to the point of resembling a tomato's, and she scurried out of the house as fast as she could.

Archer, who had spent nearly the entire time silently looking at the four sabers, gave him a strange look before following his master.

Shirou blinked. "What was that about?"

Nero giggled, "You know Praetor, I wonder sometimes if you really are that clueless, or it's all somekind of plan."

Now that just confused him even more.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Rin twitched as she stomped back home. "Stupid Emiya. No tact at all to that guy. You don't just say something like that to a girl!" She shook her head. "Well, at least I can finally bring something to this alliance. Otherwise, he'll be doing all the work, and my pride can't take that." Still, it was decidedly an advantage that Sakura had joined Shirou. Four Sabers, a Rider, an Archer, and whatever servant or two she could manage to summon. That was actually quite probably the most powerful alliance in this war.

Behind her, Archer followed in spirit form, locked in his own thoughts. He had caught but a glimpse of the new sabers' weapons, but that was enough for his structural analysis to record their wielders' history. _'Four sabers. Saber is the same, Lily is Saber who took an alternate path that resulted in a utopia. Nero...is their ancestor. Alter however...' _

He frowned. Her sword had been covered by _something. _Something dark and powerful. Rin had mentioned that Alter had unleashed it on _Cerberus _of all people, summoned by a Herakles that appeared to have been summoned in Greece, therefore increasing his power _even more. 'As if he needs it.' _He scoffed. A normal Herakles was bad enough. Now, he was stronger than ever, and worse, _sane, _because for some reason Ilya had seen the tactical advantage of letting the greatest hero of Greece use his technique and mind for once.

Still, Alter unnerved him. Saber was warrior-queen that he could never forget. Lily was her better side, the one who had cast aside perfection for humanity, and apparently for the better. Nero was...a boisterously extravagant personality that seemed at odds with her image. Then again, perhaps he was biased in that, as he expected someone with Saber's looks to be an austere monarch.

Alter though, thanks to that...thing, he had never seen her blade. He knew nothing about her, only that she was a ruthless pragmatist, and gave off the feeling of bloodlust wherever she went. Saber had always liked a good fight. Alter seemed to prefer a good _slaughter_. Her very presence unnerved him, and maybe he shouldn't have spent the entire time studying the four, but he was just too curious.

Then of course, the main problem: his past self.

His plan was in tatters. To wipe himself out, would require going back to his _actual _timeline. This was most certainly not it. If the thousands of nerve-converted circuits Shirou had weren't an indicator, then that strange Word Magic that Rin had mentioned most certainly was.

He had never seen something like that before. It seemed to be weaponized _concepts _in the shape of bladed implements. But then there was also that person Shirou had mentioned.

A mentor.

Somewhere out there, a magus with access to an entire vocabulary of conceptual magic had seen Shirou, discovered his uniquely-acquired magic circuits, and decided to _teach _him Word-magic, though apparently limited to sword-related Words. Any magus worth his salt would have kidnapped Shirou and experimented on him in an attempt to acquire such a talent. What had stopped that man?

He sighed. He shouldn't bother. The chances of that man, whoever he was, to visit after all this time was slim. The more important part was the fact that this Shirou was still just like all the others. He still dreamed of being a hero.

In his soul, the numerous swords of his reality marble seemed to shiver in excitement. If nothing else, if the kid wouldn't drop that dream, then he would have no choice but to kill him. Better to spare him of that horror. It was for his own good. Preferably with a sword rain.

...okay, so maybe he was feeling a bit vindictive about that idiot getting more power than he ever dreamed of in his life, but could you blame him?

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Luvia scowled as she reclined in the mansion. Her butt was still sore from Merlin dumping her on her ass with the portal, but at least she hadn't died.

She looked to the windows as she felt her servants approaching.

Dematerialized and recognized by the few bounded fields she had managed to set up, they phased through the walls before solidifying before her.

She frowned at Lancelot's battered armor, then blinked at Siegfried, whose armor was completely gone. Merlin's lack of damage was understandable, as any Caster who had a warrior class get close typically didn't survive. "What happened out there?" She asked.

Rider grinned. "An excellent battle was what happened. Not bad for first contact." He sat down, wincing as certain spots on his body complained at the abuse from earlier. "I actually _felt _my enemy's hits. Admittedly, he could never pierce my skin, but damn if he didn't hit hard enough to bruise." He shook his head. "And he was their Berserker, who fought _sane._ Granted, he's a ludicrously powerful hero to be frank. Even without madness enhancement, he had to be at least A+ in strength, considering I had to go berserk to match him in that area. Couldn't figure out who he was, but Lancelot and Merlin learned their opponents'." He gestured to the two.

Lancelot's armor disappeared, and he was dressed once more in that pilot attire, For Another's Honor deactivated to show his true face. "Hector of Troy, and he's every bit the spearman legends made him out to be. He has a similar ability to my Knight of Honor, only more specialized and powerful. What I touch I merely know how to use best. If he grabs anything spear-like, it _does _turn into a spear, and damn me if his projectiles won't take down a lesser hero in a single hit. That's for scrap though."

He grinned tiredly. "He used his true weapon on me. Called it Roaring Spear, and the prana in it was anti-unit. His skill made it tear the ground asunder like an anti-army projectile though. Would have killed me if I hadn't dodged, and I had him on the ropes if that black giant hadn't interfered."

Merlin nodded. "Odysseus of Ithaca, King of Explorers. Arrows fired from his bow has homing properties I believe, though there are limits. He summoned a special arrow that would have otherwise killed me if it wasn't for my father's luck. I think it's somekind of specialized arrow built for his bow that wasn't mentioned in the legends. He could also use the bag of winds Aeolus gave him, and a cloth that turns him invisible."

He glanced outside, as thunder rumbled out despite the clear night sky. He frowned, before turning back to Luvia. "Lastly, his phantasm, The Odyssey. I believe he can summon any of the now-phantasmal entities he encountered in his journey, and that is quite a lot. I had the advantage due to my sheer variability and chaotic nature, but next time I believe, it won't be so easy. People like him always wise up."

Luvia frowned. "That...is a very powerful team." The frown deepened as she remembered something. "Their master also mentioned another contender with four Sabers."

Lancelot nodded. "Yes, that. Sabers are powerful servants, master. Some say the most powerful. A master with four..." He shook his head. "The power of such a magus would be tremendous, and his servants only moreso."

Merlin rubbed his beard. "Well, it seems this grail war won't be the easy win we thought." His eyes narrowed. "We will need to be careful from now on. This is a most unusual grail war, and who knows how many servants are actually going to be present? No, I believe we should lay low for a while. Preferably for enough time for me to create my temple and forge some items."

Lancelot grinned at this. "I would not call your creations merely 'items', Merlin. Your works have always ended up quite beyond compare for our age, and could stand with the best of them in the Age of the Gods."

The wizard laughed. "Oh yes, time to put that skill to good use. You especially, Knight of the Lake, are going to need some weapons. Can't have you fighting with scrap of all things, even if you _can _make them workable."

Rider shrugged. "Whatever works for you. I need no items. My sword and my mettle are all I require." He stood up and stretched. "I will rest. See you tomorrow, master." He walked away.

Lancelot raised an eyebrow at Siegfried's retreating back. "Rather confident, isn't he?"

"Comes with being invulnerable. Wouldn't you?" Merlin answered, before humming a tune and walking out to start on converting the grounds into his temple.

Luvia sighed. "Well, this wasn't according to plan."

"In my experience. Plans, never survive contact with the enemy, unless the plan is just 'kill them all in any way possible', master." Lancelot answered lightheartedly.

Luvia giggled, before turning serious. "Still, if just that one team was that tough, what about that other master? Four servants, all at the same time..." She shivered at the implications. "He must be a legend. A magus to shame other magi, the pinnacle of our art, a master. Perhaps one of the tower lords? Or maybe..." She paled at a thought. "...the _Queen_..." She _could _do it. The Bartholomei's Blue Blood Magic Circuits could most definitely supply four sabers, and the queen was nothing if not legendary.

She shuddered. "No. That's just too much. The queen's back in England. It's someone else. It's someone else..." She sighed. "Of course, that means we have no idea who he is..."

And so, as Siegfried slept away his bruises, Merlin built his temple, and Lancelot stood guard over their master, Luvia wondered at her prospects in this grail war, and the possibilities of a person who could summon four sabers.

Only the best would have been able to do so. If his personality and skills and lineage were unknown, one thing was for sure: He was most probably a brilliant master magus that would take her very best to defeat. And yet, as an Edelfelt, a family who prided itself in its combat capabilities, Luvia looked forward to such a challenging fight.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ilya sighed as her servants told her of the battle.

"So, an invulnerable berserk Rider, a Berserker that doesn't lose his skill while Berserkering, and the Wizard of Camelot himself, who is apparently the son of the devil himself." She summed it up.

Berserker nodded. **"Forgive us, we should have done better."**

She shook her head frantically. "No! You did your best. They just..." she sighed once more. "No one could have expected that." Honestly, her summoning more servants had surprised her! Who could have imagined someone summoning three, too?

Odysseus tested his bow. "Well, next time won't be as easy. That wizard was the most chaotic spellcaster I ever met. The mishmash of magic he knows somehow meshes well together into a style that I cannot help but admit as supremely effective. Nonetheless, I've seen most of his tricks. I'll know what to plan for later." He grinned. "Second time is always easier for me." The he looked at Ilya. "It is late. You should be asleep now."

For a moment, it seemed that she would refuse, then she smiled tiredly and allowed Berserker to take her to bed, being carried in one large arm.

When she was gone, Hector materialized beside him.

The King of Ithaca gave him a look. "She doesn't blame you, you know."

The wounded soldier frowned. "I almost died. It took Herakles' help to keep that knight from killing me. It was pitiful." The grip on his golden spear tightened. "Next time..."

Odysseus sighed. "Very well. If you want to make yourself useful, set up your bounded field. With it, no one can assault us without you knowing about it and a severe disadvantage."

"Only the best for our little lady." Hector agreed. He leaped out to start with the ritual.

Berserker stepped out and nodded to him. **"Your turn tonight. Keep her safe."**

Odysseus gave the demigod a determined look. "My life for hers, any day."

Their enemies had won one battle. The war however was still in the air, and for the one they had adopted as their child, there would be no line they wouldn't cross for her happiness.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Interesting." Waver muttered as he studied the destruction caused by the battle. The street, to put it bluntly, was a mess. On one part, it seemed as if two titans had gone at each other and trampled the ground into a shattered mess. Many were the gouges that seemed to be from a greatsword or a large jagged implement, as were places where apparently they had taken to throwing cars, park benches, and parts of the very street at each other.

On another side, it was pockmarked with uniformly-sized craters, and quite a few lampposts and streetsigns had been torn off for some reason. And of course, there was that trench of wrecked concrete where it seemed as if a god had gone and slashed at the ground with a sword.

The battle here, despite all the damage, seemed par for the course for a war between heroic spirits.

Beside him, Iskander tsked. "A pity that we had not arrived earlier. Truly, this battle was an intense one, with multiple participants. It would have been a grand entrance to the war for us to have joined in on this battle."

Temujin walked up to them after running off somewhere. "In that lies the problem. There's too many."

Iskander raised an eyebrow. "Say again?"

The Khan nodded. "Too many servants. I followed a trail, there were two more servants fighting. There weren't four servants fighting here. There were _six."_

Waver put a hand to his chin. "Six...that's..." he shook his head. "That's rather unbelievable. But then again..." He looked at the two servants he had summoned.

Grimly, Iskander nodded. "Then this war isn't like the others. More servants are present. Perhaps more just double, because if what we see here is true, then it was not a free-for-all. It was a battle between alliances, or two masters with three servants." Then he grinned, and the Khan mirrored him.

"Well then, it'll just take longer to win this war, won't it?" Temujin proclaimed.

Iskander laughed. "Yes, that would be the issue. Now then, as I believe none of us have any proper tracking capabilities, back to the house! There is still much I have to catch up to." He walked back to the Gordius Wheel, the vehicle by which they had arrived in the first place.

Waver sighed, and stepped up to it. Temujin himself declined as before, summoning Naiman with a whistle, and his faithful steed manifested in a flash of blinding sunlight.

The legendary horse was the equal of Bucephalus in every way despite its smaller size, and though Iskander arrived first, it took barely half a minute before Temujin caught up to them.

Then of course it was back to gaming. It seemed not even the prospect of a much more lethal grail could daunt the King of Conqueror's desire to experience how much the gaming industry had improved. Temujin too, after a while, decided to try it out, though it seemed he preferred the ones where you built your own army and conquered others'.

For Waver Velvet, he could care less about the war. His king was alive, and he was by his side. Let the world throw its worst at them, he would face it with a smile with his liege.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Well bugger me. It's Lord El-Melloi." Jordan muttered as he watched the Tower Lord step onto the gigantic chariot and fly away. The other servant, an Asian, summoned a horse with a whistle and a flash of light, before mounting it and riding away.

Napoleon frowned beside him. "You know him?"

The Englishman nodded. "He's one of the instructors in the Clock Tower. Probably the best. Every one of his students turned out excellent, and he has A LOT of students." He chuckled. "They say if he gathered all of them and went on a coup, he has a good chance of actually succeeding. God knows every single one of them worships the ground he walks on and probably wouldn't bat an eye if he suggested that."

The Emperor of France narrowed his eyes at the retreating figures. "Sounds like a great man."

"He _is _a great man. He was a contender for the last war. Expect him to be brutal and efficient. He may not have my battle experience, but considering how the last war was, he's going to fight with no hesitation and probably very little bullshit. No gloating, no shenanigans, just your elimination." Jordan informed him.

Napoleon crossed his arms. "Then why didn't you let me shoot at him then?"

Jordan chuckled. "You saw him arrive on that flying chariot didn't you? That one's a Rider. Kill the master, and escape isn't an option. You just aren't fast enough. As for beating him...do you _really _want to face two servants with unknown abilities?"

"To charge into battle without proper information is the height of stupidity. I studied tactics, boy. I understand your decision." Napoleon admitted.

Then Jackie manifested.

"So, what did you find out?" The enforcer asked.

"They said six servants fought in all. Four here, two beyond there." She pointed to a field far away to the left.

"Anything else?" The magus asked. "Something that could reveal the servants' identity?"

She shook her head. "Nothing."

Jordan shrugged. "Well, it was a long shot anyway." He cracked his neck. "Well, this just confirms it. This war's special. Way too damn many servants."

"As much as it galls me to admit, eliminating the girl really would have been a tactically unsound move." Napoleon admitted.

Jordan rolled his eyes. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Right, back to the house." He started walking away, then noticed that only Jackie was following him. "Hey Archer, you coming?"

The Emperor turned to him, and shook his head. "I wish to explore the city for the night. Do you mind?"

Another shrug. "Go ahead. Just be careful okay? We don't know how many servants are walking around in the city."

Napoleon just laughed. "I am afraid of nothing, boy. But very well, I will retreat if I find two or more servants. One however?" His eyes glinted viciously. "May that hero's gods, whatever they are, have mercy on his soul, because I shall pound his body to dust."

With that, they went on their separate ways, Napoleon with the urge to explore, and Jordan with a Jackie clinging uncomfortably close to his arm.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Samson didn't ask where they were going. He had met enough prophets to know of certain gifts that nearly all of them had. One of them was a divine guidance to the ultimate fulfillment of a goal. They knew not how, or why, only that they had to do this, go there, or make that.

Which was why his question wasn't about where they were going after walking for more than an hour in the middle of the night right after disembarking from their journey, but rather his ally's current state.

"You look tired. Are you sure we need to do this now?" The Wrathbringer of God asked Moses.

The ancient prophet looked worn out, rare for servants. Bags were under his eyes and his wrinkles seemed deeper. Nonetheless, he looked straight forward with defiance to his fatigue. "The goal is to win this war. The fires urge me to go _tonight. _Tonight and no other night, for this is our best chance of eliminating an enemy."

Samson frowned. "You pushed yourself really hard you know? Not that I'm complaining from the results, but it will be troublesome if you die in the fight because you're so tired from making so much."

The prophet turned to him, and religious fervor shone in his eyes. "Believe what you will, Wrathbringer. I travelled the length of the desert while leading an entire country of people. I know fatigue, and it daunts me not. What I know is that it will be harder for us to attack later with me fully rested, than now with me tired from my creations."

Determinedly, Samson nodded. "Very well. If that is what you believe, then that is the truth. My only question then is if we can go faster."

Then Moses stopped, and pointed to the side, where a house sitting on what could almost be called a field could be seen. "In my sight, it burns with purpose." Even then, the bounded fields created by the magus to drive away the masses would have been enough of an indicator for him. "Prepare yourself, we assault a fortress. Wear the shroud I made for you. You will need it."

Samson grinned, and in an instant, civilian clothes disappeared, to be replaced with primitive iron armor. He took out an expanse of cloth made of brown and red thread, putting it on as one would a cape. Instantly, he felt rejuvenated, as if his body was filled to bursting with life. His bronzed hair seemed to crackle with suppressed energy as a strange weapon materialized in his hand.

It was an axe with a haft of black iron lined with bronze, with an axehead made of a donkey's jawbone dipped in bronze. More importantly however, was its size and proportions. The jawbone was gigantic, the blunt 'axe-blade' it formed more than three feet long. The haft itself was short for such a large weapon, being barely half as long as the axe-blade's length. Even then, Samson gripped it by the middle, and despite his own large size, it looked comically big in his hands.

Moses breathed deeply, and his ensemble changed, becoming a pure white cloak, with a large red scarf around his neck, both articles of clothing radiated power. What their effects though, were unknown even to Samson. The bronze staff in Moses' hand shaped like a snake seemed to give the surroundings a predatory look.

Then he spoke, in the language of ancient Hebrew, a language no one could properly speak now. Even then, the way he spoke it would have been archaic even to the people of his time.

"_Oh Yahweh, Strike them down." _

A bolt of lightning came from the clear skies, slamming down into the center of the field with enough power to vaporize an oak.

"Go." He ordered, and with that, the prophet and the wrathbringer stepped into the field of the Witch of Dun Scaith.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**[Earlier in the day]**

For Bazett, it had been a good day, all things considered.

Admittedly, waking up between the naked bodies of her childhood hero and his female mentor had been supremely embarrassing (for her, at least. The two seemed to have no shame, strutting around without a care as they retrieved their clothes), but after getting dressed, what she had done started to sink in.

She had had sex. With Cu Chulainn. And Scathach. It was like...well, she honestly had no idea how to describe it besides cataclysmically orgasmic (or was it the other way around?) seeing as the two had teamed up on her and pleasured her to unconsciousness before going at each other.

"Hey Bazett."

The Irishwoman nearly leaped into the air in surprise at Lancer. "Uhh, y-yes?" She asked, after recovering her composure.

"You got any woad?" He asked.

She blinked, then shook her head. "N-no. Why do you ask?"

Lancer held up his spear. "Need something to paint this with. Can't carve runes into it, so paint is the only method. We need everything we can get our hands on to beat that kid with the four sabers, and runemarking Gae Bolg is just the start."

"Oh." Right, those four. Get your mind out of the gutter, Bazett! There's still a war going on! "Well, we could always buy some paint."

He nodded. "Sure. Woad would be best, but I'm guessing they don't have that. Blue paint would be the next best thing, and it must be organic for it to stick."

She stood up. "Right. Let's go." Walking out, she found Scathach walking around the field, her hands tracing innumerable figures into the air. "What are you doing?"

The spellsword looked at her. "Making my temple. Best to take advantage of everything, yes?" She squinted at them. "Buying paint? Save some for me, too. You two go on ahead, I want this done by tomorrow."

After an hour or so, they returned with four buckets of the stuff, and Lancer immediately opened one up and started delicately painting runes onto his spear.

Scathach herself continued with her temple. It would take about two days to create it, and if what they had heard was true, if the two of them were to beat the sabers, they would need as many advantages as they could get. Runemarked phantasms and mystic codes were just the beginning.

Honestly, that prodigy was just too troublesome. He wouldn't stay dead and then summoned _four _servants when about to die once more. Out of nowhere and without a ritual too!

Still, hopefully her superior battle experience would be enough to take him down if the two fought. Fighting someone whom Cu Chulainn considered fitting for the Age of the Gods would be a daunting prospect for anyone.

Then in the middle of the night, a lightning bolt came down on the building, tearing through the walls and nearly striking her, but instead vaporizing the wall beside her.

She blinked.

"Master, enemy servants! Get out of here Bazett!" Lancer screamed, crashing through the door and leaping out of the newly-created hole.

After him came Scathach. The redhead strode purposefully towards the interlopers, features locked into an emotionless mask of concentration. "Do what he said. These two...they are powerful foes. We cannot spare the effort to protect you." She leaped forward, her armor upon her body once more and a runemarked greatsword in her hands.

Bazett didn't argue as explosions started occurring.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

For Napoleon, the city was a wonder. In the modern day, what was once only a king's privilege was an everyday occurrence to the masses. Granted, there were still poor people, but every city had to have those.

Universal satisfaction after all, was just plain impossible.

Then he saw him.

A blonde, red-eyed man in expensive-looking clothes, staring boredly at a clothes shop.

It was the presence that alerted Napoleon to the supernatural nature of the man. People just seemed to unconsciously go out of his way, like the sea parting before a shark, only no one seemed to notice. That, and the aura of power and glory that surrounded him.

Servant.

Napoleon grinned, and followed the man. For a few minutes, it seemed as if he had not been noticed, then the man's eyes shifted to look into his, and a sneer formed on the blonde's lips before he wordlessly started to march somewhere secluded.

The Emperor frowned. That sneer...it irked him. It was as if that man considered him below his attention, like a rat that had been taken notice by repeatedly bumping into his shoe, and that needed to be exterminated out of sight.

"I'm going to enjoy wiping that sneer off his face." He was Napoleon Bonaparte, the Emperor of France, and that man was going to regret dismissing him as a threat.

And so he followed him. In a minute, they were in a secluded yard, junk scattered all around.

The suit disappeared from Napoleon's frame, to be replaced by the imperial military attire. He grinned. "So, are you ready to fight, servant?"

But the sneer remained, even as the modern clothing was swapped for a golden full plate. "Mongrels. Mongrels everywhere. It seems your kind is just popping out of the woodwork. I would have deigned to ignore you, but you had the gall to stalk me. It annoyed me." The eyes narrowed in anger. "And the punishment for annoying the king, is _death!"_

The air behind him shimmered, and _dozens_ of noble phantasms manifested.

Napoleon blinked. "What the hell? How do you have so many?" It was impossible. Yes, heroes typically had multiple phantasms, but not _dozens. _What had he gotten himself into?

"Die, mongrel." Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, declared.

And the legendary weapons launched themselves at Napoleon.

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**Yeah. I totally just sicced a cliffhanger on you.**

**So, Moses and Samson attacked Scathach and Cu Chulainn because any later and the place would have been impregnable by virtue of being a fully-formed Caster Temple.**

**Also, Napoleon's gotten himself into a scrap with Gilgamesh. Should have walked with Jordan, dude. I wonder how you're going to get your ass outta this mess...**

**Oh, and Rin's going to summon her servants! Take a guess who the heck the new ones will be! I've left enough clues that some should know about them.**

**On a side note, I posted the Nerve Damage Servant sheets. It has all the skills of each servant, and noble phantasms will be posted as they appear in-story. **

**Review! It feeds me.**


	12. Chapter 12

**Nerve Damage**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Fate/Stay Night. There, now will you lawyers PLEASE stop stalking me?!**

**Note: If there are any grammar, spelling, or information mistakes, please tell me. I hate mistakes.**

**Blame school for the short hiatus. I'm on break, so I could FINALLY update. **

**Servant sheets have been updated as proper due to the recent revelation in this chapter.**

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

The ritual was done once again.

"Bare and silver and iron. Stone for foundation and the Grand Duke of contracts. My great master Shveinorg for the ancestor.

A wall for the descending winds. The four gates shall close and come out the crown. Let the three-forked road to the kingdom cycle."

It was the same circle she had used before, the one made out of melted jewels. With each word, more of her prana was poured into the circle.

"Enclose. Enclose. Enclose. Enclose. Enclose.

Five times for each repetition.

Just destroy the enclosed time.

Anfang."

This time, she had not mistaken the time. It WAS the time of her peak strength.

"I announce.

Thy body shall be under my command, my fate shall be determined by thy sword.

Follow the call of the Holy Grail. If thou wouldst obey this mind and this reason, then answer my call."

She WOULD summon more servants. After hearing of so many others doing the same, her pride would allow nothing else, not the mention the fact that she actually _needed _more servants to be effective in the war.

"I make an oath here.

I am the one who shall become the virtue of all afterworld.

I am the one who shall lay out the evil of all afterworld.

Thou art Seven Heavens clad in the Three Great Words."

She **will **win this war!

"Emerge from the ring of control, guardian of balance!"

And a blaze of light erupted forth.

Kneeling before it, she found herself blinded by the radiance, stumbling backwards as she put a hand between her eyes for protection.

Then as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.

She blinked out the spots in her eyes as she stood up, and beheld her summon.

It was a man dressed entirely in white. His sweater, his pants, his cloak, even the mask he wore was completely white. It was a stark contrast to the room, and yet, it seemed so hard to focus on him despite his glaring color.

He was a servant, that much could be said from his presence and his magical energy, but the fact that he was holding a GUN of all things surprised her.

The man nodded at her. "At your summoning, I have come forth as Servant Assassin. What is your will?"

Rin frowned. She had hoped to summon a Lancer, one of the knight classes, or barring that, a Rider. She had ended up with _Assassin _of all people. And one who used a gun.

A _gun._

Few heroic spirits used guns, and those that did almost always had them merely as heroic weapons, tools that could harm servants and were beyond their mortal kin, but otherwise nowhere near the power of noble phantasms.

Nonetheless, that indicated a servant with a legend that was depressingly young compared to the heroes of sword and sorcery of the past ages. So then, who exactly _was _her servant?

"I am your master. What is your name?" She declared.

Assassin nodded. "I am Simo Hayha of Finland."

She blinked at his name. "...who?"

Assassin was about to respond when his body suddenly tensed, and his form snapped into a firing position, gun pointed at...

Oh. Right.

Of course, Archer, who had been watching her summon from one corner, would no doubt surprise a newly-summoned servant who had no information of the clusterfuck this war had become.

"Master, would you mind explaining why there is another servant with us?" He asked, pointing his gun at Archer.

"Complications." Rin answered quickly. "This grail war has diverted from the norm due to a certain...incident. There are more than seven masters, and each has at least two servants. I had summoned before the rules had changed, and I summoned once again to even the odds."

Assassin gave off the impression of raising an eyebrow despite his mask, before nonchalantly shrugging. "Very well. What is your plan?" And just like that, he was acclimated to the situation.

He needn't know more about this new grail war. The woman before him had called out for a hero, and he had answered, with all the consequences that came with that voluntary decision. He had stepped forward to answer her call, and he was now set on that road, the act demanding loyalty. In that, she was similar to his motherland in this affair. For this life, it was the winter war all over again. His enemies were hostile servants instead of invading Russians, and his country, his master.

No more needed to be said. For as long as virtue was upheld by his master, he would fight for her as he would for his own country, and that was the greatest honor Simo had to offer.

"Simo...Hayha?" Archer repeated, frowning at him as the Grail started to supply the information at the declaration of his name. "You mean...the White Death?"

A nod. "Yes."

Archer blinked. "You made a world power's army cease marching through your territory from your reputation alone." He smiled. "Impressive."

Rin herself had to admit the glory of that feat. _'Perhaps...this Assassin wouldn't be too bad.' _She thought.

A shrug. Simo never truly cared for such a reputation. His country had called her children to war, and he had answered dutifully, as he had done in all things. Everything else were just trivialities.

"Interesting."

Everyone snapped into attention, turning to the sound of the voice, a figure halfway-hidden in shadows, leaning across the wall.

The figure spoke once more. "Multiple servants, you say? How many sets? Two? Three?"

Rin frowned at the figure. Was this...another servant?

"...four." She finally said after a few moments of silence. It wasn't confirmed yet, but by the way things were going...

A laugh.

The figure stepped out of the shade, and the group couldn't help but stare in shock at the sight.

"Well then, they better be truly legendary, because otherwise they stand no chance. Don't you think so too, master?" Her newest servant proclaimed with a grin.

It wasn't hard to identify him. After all, that was a face that showed up very frequently in history books.

Julius Caesar grinned widely. "Four sets of seven. Four wishes. The possibility of multiple victors. That rules out infighting then." He laughed once more. "This shall be an interesting conquest indeed."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Die, mongrel." Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, declared.

And the legendary weapons launched themselves at Napoleon.

Against the King of Heroes and his Gate of Babylon, most heroes would not have lasted a minute. There was just so very little that could survive a storm of proto-phantasms, each one a masterpiece of death and destruction, each one an original, each one ancient in a world where age meant power.

To dodge them was foolhardy, for the sheer number and speed of the projectiles made it moot. To block, would require an object that would not break against the continuous battering of high-rank phantasms. Even if wielding a weapon of equal rank, the hero's single weapon would be chipped away eventually.

If his skills didn't turn out inadequate and he was skewered still by the storm of blades anyway.

So why then, was that mongrel _smiling?!_

Then the Frenchman's voice rang out.

"**King's Battery: Thundering Chorus of the Emperor!" **He proclaimed, unleashing _his _noble phantasm.

Space shifted and opened into an armory similar to and yet quite unlike any other on earth.

A rainbow of colors spilled forth, as from circular portals, rose the weapons of the King of Artillery.

Behind Napoleon, manifested _dozens _of cannons. High-bores, cart-carried. Grapeshot and scattershot. Every kind imaginable.

An ancient cannon lined with gold, its barrel shaped into a snarling lion's. Another, painted in red resembling blood, a golden eagle perched upon its middle. A grapeshot cannon made of black unforgiving steel lined with regimental kill-marks.

So many, all of glorious make.

They burned with power and wrath. Their presence was overwhelming, their form sublime and perfect by all standards of man.

They were all noble phantasms.

Grapeshot and scattershot spaced out strategically spat forth a wall of steel balls that knocked away every weapon thrown at him, then the cannons, each one containing a metal sphere larger than a soccer ball, fired at the blonde servant.

Ordinary cannons could crack open a castle wall with the sheer strength of their projectiles. These weren't ordinary cannons. They were above their mundane counterparts the same way those were above a primitive bow.

Invisible barriers that were unseen save for a faint distortion in the air manifested around the red-eyed servant. Each one a power to their own, the equivalent of a fortress wall and beyond.

The first sphere slammed into the shields with a resounding clang, grinding itself a few inches into the barrier. Then the second turned it into a mess of cracks, and the third shattered the first shield.

The rest thundered into Gilgamesh's barriers, until at the very end, a single lonely barrier stood cracked but not shattered. The King of Heroes' expression was a mixture of surprise and anger. Mostly anger, but disbelief was most certainly there.

The Emperor of France grinned at him. Right then, Napoleon wished he had something to smoke. He just _knew _it would piss off the blonde prick a whole lot.

"Mongrel...what are you?" The red-eyed king snarled out. Multiple phantasms. How? _He _was the King of Heroes, the owner of the world. That was why he had so many, but how could _this_ servant, have such an amount?!

He recognized _none _of the phantasms that had been used against him. And yet, he could not deny their power. To break all those shields so quickly, would require nothing less than A-rank damage.

Napoleon's smile widened, even as the mention of 'mongrel' made him vow a bloody death for his enemy. "I am many things. I am an emperor. I am a general. I am a hero. I am Napoleon Bonaparte, master of warfare, King of Artillery, Emperor of Europe." He chuckled darkly. "And I am here to grind your body to dust and burn the remains to ashes. En garde!" He declared imperiously, gesturing towards the enemy servant and aiming the artillery towards him.

The red-eyed king glared at him. "And you severely overestimate yourself, dog, if you think you stand a chance of defeating the King of Uruk." He stated coldly.

Napoleon blinked at the title. "What?" _'Uruk...you don't mean...'_

Behind him, Gate of Babylon expanded, more weapons rising from the golden gate to be thrown at the enemy. The weapons from before had been but the simplest of the gate's arsenal, chosen due to the perceived weakness of the enemy, C-rank at the most. Faced with a much stronger enemy than anticipated, Gilgamesh had raised the bar as needed, and weapons of major legends now faced Napoleon, the equivalent of an arsenal consisting only of B and A-rank weapons.

The King of Uruk had but one order: "Die, trash." And a storm of legends shot at Napoleon.

The cannons, primed and ready, fired, meeting the proto-phantasms head-on.

Cannonfire and legendary weapons met head-on. This time, the greater weapons merely punched through the cloud of grapeshot, the cannonballs being the only ones capable of overcoming the new swords.

Napoleon swore, and a wave of his hand had a gigantic cannon appearing before him, pointing straight upwards. The remains of Gilgamesh's volley rained down upon him, sundering his cannons, until only scrap metal was left, though the last summoned piece left him unharmed.

Gilgamesh smirked at him. "Nothing can compare to the might of the true king, mongrel. That one as young as you would even consider the possibility of victory is insulting. And to insult to king, is death!" He raised his hand, and the gate widened once more, until literally a hundred weapons were before Napoleon.

Then the Frenchman laughed.

Gilgamesh blinked. "Are you...mocking me, mongrel?"

Wiping tears from his eyes, Napoleon grinned at Gilgamesh. "Not mocking. I am merely amused by your arrogance." He squinted at his enemy. "Hmm, you're about six feet aren't you? Well within range. **Napoleonic Complex." **The air around him changed, suddenly charged with power, and his features gained a savage element in addition to his professional calm.

He raised his arms, and the battery manifested once more, in numbers matching Gate of Babylon's, every single one a full cannon. "The Battery...is every single artillery piece fielded by France during my time, and what could have been had I won my victory over Europe. Every single one raised and empowered by my legend into noble phantasms." The grin widened. "Let's see who runs out first, eh?"

Gilgamesh didn't reply with words, pointing his finger at Napoleon, and the rain of phantasms came down once more.

"Fire!" Napoleon shouted, and the cannons erupted.

Twin rains of steel met, and the air erupted into explosions and the sound of screaming, rending steel.

Mighty swords, jewel-encrusted and shining like the sun, met ebony spheres of metal, fired by magnificent cannons of glorious make.

Lesser swords broke and shattered, while greater ones punched through the spheres to penetrate or sometimes destroy the cannons themselves.

Phantasmal effects were unleashed. Fire claimed the air, hoarfrost formed and struck. Conceptual effects battered against sheer overwhelming power.

An endless exchange took place as the two kings exchanged blows with their weapons.

Gate of Babylon struck out with greater and greater weapons, struggling to overcome the battery, enhanced as it was with A-rank military tactics and the strange fury-filling phantasm declared earlier, and as weapons greater than A-rank were unleashed, Napoleon did not shy away from Breaking cannons to unleash even greater volleys of power or using them as makeshift shields, their great bulk making effective barriers.

It went on until the ground was liberally littered with the shattered steel and broken metal of phantasmal weapons.

For Napoleon, the destruction of a few hundred cannons was negligible. He had thousands in his arsenal. They were weapons, and were made to be used as such.

Gilgamesh however...

The blonde king was nigh frothing at the mouth at all his destroyed treasures. "You! Just die, you filth! To destroy so much of the King's treasures...I will make you **suffer** for this affront!"

The King of France frowned. The man's arrogance...it was truly getting on his nerves. His fists tightened. "Spare me your woes. Weapons are weapons. Use them. If I had what you had, why, I believe I'd arm my soldiers with them and conquer the world."

Gilgamesh scowled at him. "And your ignorance of your place is just another affront. That you have forced me to expend this much effort is an unforgivable-"

"Shut. UP!" Napoleon screamed, and a dozen new cannons materialized, _Broke, _then fired, all in an instant, full of so much prana that their discharge _shattered _the cannons themselves.

New, untouched barriers and shields manifested. An oval steel shield the color of the blue seas. A kite shield of solid gold carved into the likeness of a bird taking flight. A crystal half-sphere in all the colors of the rainbow. Many more appeared, each one equivalent to fortress walls that _shattered _like glass, and the cannonballs broke past them and...

...swept past Gilgamesh. They had been aimed to _just _brush past him. Nonetheless, shock could just be seen in the King of Heroes' eyes. Those had been priceless defenses, prototype NPs of the greatest make, and they had been utterly _crushed _by a servant that was a mere few centuries old!

"There." Napoleon muttered. "I could have killed you. You are not invincible." Truth. The King of Uruk had been too surprised to possibly react to that. If it had been actually aimed at him...

The scowl on the blonde deepened. "You think that fluke means anything, mongrel? You cannot possib-" He stopped, shocked, as an image shocking for its similarity manifested.

Behind Napoleon, _hundreds _of cannons, their numbers steadily rising, manifested, each one just as powerful as the last. B-rank grapeshot, A-rank heavy-bores. All of them empowered up by the unnamed phantasm that had manifested when their combat had started.

The Emperor of France gritted his teeth. "Trash this. Mongrel that. Is that all we are to you?" The air seemed to shake at his rage. "You understand _nothing! _We. Are. HEROES! Men and women of power and glory and skill whose trials and deeds have ascended to _immortality! _And you _disregard _that?! Fool!"

Cannons fired, and Gate of Babylon widened and launched a similar barrage in response, a volley of raw destruction that would have sundered a hundred fortresses in its time and annihilated any hero caught in the crossfire.

As ancient legendary weapons met phantasm cannonfire, Gilgamesh shook his head in defiance. "I am the King. In the end, you are all beneath me." He stated with unshakable belief born of experience, for he had never been defeated.

Then the new shields set up were shattered once more, and Gilgamesh actually had to draw out one of his weapons to shatter the metal sphere_._

Napoleon continued, his face a grim line. "So you ignore all that we have done? Madness. You do not comprehend us, do you?" He raised his hand, and the barrage stopped. He sighed, then looked Gilgamesh in the eye.

The King of Heroes found himself at pause. Fire was in those eyes. Fire the likes of which the world rarely ever saw. It was determination and will and ruthlessness and pride all rolled into something greater than the sum of its parts.

_This_...was **not** a mongrel.

Napoleon spoke, and Gilgamesh _listened. _"When you call us heroes mongrels, you insult our very being, King of Heroes. We are, by our very nature and _existence, _the ones who ascended!" His voice was rising in pitch, reaching fever tone. "We the ones who looked at the masses, thought them inadequate, and rose above it! We are swordsmen who make blademasters weep. We are marksmen who humble the best of archers. We are the ones whose rages shook the earth, whose spells were the stuff of dreams. We are the generals unstoppable, the kings unforgettable! We made ourselves _superior_. We became as gods above the people of our time."

Napoleons' eyes narrowed. "In a time when a _priest _declared royalty, I spat in the face of _God _and crowned myself Emperor. Heroes bow to _nothing_. Those who do, _choose _to do so, not out of obeisance. So come at me, King of Heroes. Perhaps you truly are the greatest, perhaps this is a lost cause that will end only in my defeat, but..."

The Emperor of France grinned viciously. "I will show you the strength of heroes. I will make you _bleed _for my death. I will force you to expend yourself to sunder my cannons and break my bones. You will remember this fight. You will remember this as one of the hardest. We are heroes, Gilgamesh of Uruk, and if you deign to think yourself above us, **never **mock our accomplishments, for they are all memorable to a man, feats that earned us eternal glory. Even if you are our better, never deny that we are above the nameless masses that chose to be mediocre. We are **not** mongrels. We. Are. **Legend**."

Napoleon breathed deeply, then settled his sights on Gilgamesh, determination in his eyes. "So come at me, and prove your goddamn moniker, King of Heroes." With that said, before him manifested five cannons unlike any before.

They were gigantic, outsizing all others before them by a large margin. Five golden cannons, every inch of their frames filled with such incredibly superb carvings that each one might as well be a priceless work of art. The end of each barrel was designed differently, made to look like the maws of different creatures: lion, eagle, dragon, wolf, bear. Each one so painstakingly realistic, they seemed to shiver like living things before their very eyes.

They were his true phantasms, his true weapons, and their auras of power were the strongest yet. The ones from before were but drab imitations in comparison.

Silence.

Napoleon continued to stare unflinchingly at him, hundreds of cannons floating around him, the five golden ones arranged in front of him, awaiting the King of Heroes' retaliation.

Gilgamesh breathed deeply, drinking in the air as he gave the sky a strange look, before turning his gaze back to Napoleon. His eyes narrowed. "Impressive. Your Battery is indeed a match for my Gate. Few can say the same." Then he dispelled his own readied weapons and sunk his arm in the gate, grabbing the one weapon that would nonetheless turn the tide. "I see your new pieces. Good enough I suppose, for one of your meager age. However..." he withdrew his hand, now holding a weapon whose mere image made Napoleon's blood freeze in his veins.

It was not a sword. Heck, it didn't seem to be a weapon. No edge to it, and the shape wasn't right for a club. It was naught but a narrowing black cylinder marked with crimson, and yet...

It started spinning, and Napoleon's heart hammered wildly as the forces he felt from the blade outright _dwarfed _anything he could feasibly imagine.

Death. This was his death.

Gilgamesh looked into his eyes, and declared his weapon. "This is _my _true weapon. Be honored, for you have been found worthy to bear witness to its glory. This is Ea, the Star of Creation that Split the Heavens. Look upon its glory, and weep. Powerful as your Battery is, I will sweep it away in naught but an instance with its power. You stand no chance. We both know this. Bend knee, and I might spare you." He said calmly.

Napoleon knew it to be true. Its power, he meant.

There was no chance. None at all. He would be wiped out the moment Ea's power was unleashed. And yet...

The King of France smiled tiredly, and shook his head. "I will not. I _cannot. _I will stand, Gilgamesh. I will stand and die. Perhaps it is because in life, I died in bed, in shame, when I should have died in the one battle I lost." He laughed. "But that is not it. I will stand and die because I am a hero."

He raised his arms in a grand gesture, smiling death in the face. "A hero is one who faces insurmountable odds, who knows that more likely than not, he will die, yet forges on despite it all. I stand before a superior foe, wielding a weapon sure to annihilate me. And that is why despite all that, I will fight." The cannons, all of them, hummed as prana was fed into them, nearly to bursting as Napoleon prepared to fire them all as broken phantasms, even though he knew by logic that it would not work.

"This is a good death. I will not bend knee. No hero will bend knee to a threat." A chuckle. "A good run I suppose, short as it is. I, a hero with a legend barely two hundred years old, to one whose own spans four thousand years back. Perhaps it was hopeless in the beginning, but I matched your power until the very end, and in death, I will meet the standard. I will die standing." His eyes narrowed. "So unleash your wrath, King of Uruk. I will face death with honor and dignity befitting a heroic spirit." He declared, readying himself for destruction.

Then, to Napoleon's utter surprise, Ea's three rotaries actually _slowed down._

The feeling of doom faded, and Gilgamesh gave him a nod that could almost be described as respectful.

"W-what?" The Frenchman blinked, utterly surprised at his opponent's action.

"Rejoice, Napoleon Bonaparte. You have amused the King, and as such your previous transgression has been forgiven. Your life is yours once more." Gilgamesh declared.

Napoleon stared at him. "What." He said dully.

The King of Uruk ignored him, opting to turn around and walk away, Ea already faded back to the Gate.

"Wait, what the hell are you talking about?!" Napoleon screamed at the golden figure.

Gilgamesh turned back to him, a scowl on his face. "Do not question the King's generosity, general! I have given you back your life, a privilege few have experienced. Savor your blessings, and prove your worth in the times to come. Perhaps the king will be even more generous." And with a final huff of annoyance, he drew out a wide golden disc from the gate, throwing it at the ground in front of him.

The moment both feet were on it, he simply disappeared.

There was silence for a few moments, as Napoleon blinked at the space the King of Uruk once occupied. Behind him, his multitude of cannons slowly faded away back to his armory as his battle high wound down.

Then he laughed.

A loud keening cackling that would have been un-kingly in anyone's eyes, an action he himself would have considered unsightly in normal circumstances.

But then, these weren't normal circumstances. He had met what was quite possibly, the most powerful servant in existence. He had matched said hero and his armory of ancient noble phantasms up until the very end, where he faced a weapon so powerful as to be beyond comprehensibility.

Then _somehow, _an act of mercy had been given.

He should be insulted at the action, that he was to be spared like a common man to a king's order, but then again, what _was _Gilgamesh but a king among heroes? Had Napoleon himself not obtained his kingship through strength of arms and charisma? By that logic, Gilgamesh, whose force of personality matched his and whose power was beyond him as to be unfathomable, **was **his lord in a way.

But that was not the reason. He was **alive. **He lived another day. He could care less about how. Life was life, and one appreciated it all the more after brushes with death.

Still...he shook his head. "Spared or not, we'll fight again..." He muttered, and what were the chances that he'll be spared again?

Gilgamesh _was _after all, an enemy servant. That he had been spared meant nothing even if he won against the other contenders, for he would need to defeat Gilgamesh to win the grail war...or did he?

Were there not more servants then usual? Normally six servants for one wish. But by the numbers now...

He frowned. "Are you challenging me? Are you offering me a place in victory?" He asked out loud, but Gilgamesh did not answer, or perhaps he already had.

He chuckled. "'Prove your worth' eh? I think...I'll take you up on that one."

Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps Gilgamesh meant something else and he would be denied a wish in the end, but...

"Call it a feeling, but I think he liked more _after _the battle than before..." He muttered, before turning around and nonchalantly walking back to his master.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Several blocks away, Gilgamesh, once more in civilian attire, was deep in thought.

Normally, he would have disregarded anything his enemies told him. Few deserved his attention. Even his precious Saber warranted only a fraction of his full focus. One would need to be his equal for that, and only person was ever like that.

Still, the Frenchman's words...

'_We are heroes, Gilgamesh of Uruk, and if you deign to think yourself above us, __**never **__mock our accomplishments, for they are all memorable to a man, feats that earned us eternal glory. Even if you are our better, never deny that we are above the nameless masses that chose to be mediocre. We are __**not**__ mongrels. We. Are. __**Legend**__.'_

"Hmph. Heroes, huh?" He said absently. He looked to the sky, at the stars that were visible on such a clear night. "I wonder, what would you think of what he said, my one friend?"

He was the greatest. That was a solid fact even the Frenchman couldn't deny. After Enkidu, no one else would ever be worthy of him. All other heroes were nothing before them.

But...

"Two hundred years..." Napoleon's legend was barely older than that. And yet...his power had met and matched the Gate of Babylon. He could count on one hand the mortals who could say the same even in the age of Uruk.

For such strength to be in a hero so young...it bore thinking upon.

"I wonder, is he a fluke? An anomaly? Or perhaps..."

Perhaps this world might still be salvageable after all...

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The two Irish heroes rushed out of the house at the direction of the interlopers.

Scathach frowned at the information she had received. "There's two of them. The defenses should have slowed them down at the least, but one of them directed all the damage towards him and just shrugged it off." She gritted her teeth. "Either the guy is just that tough, or we've got a servant with a high rank in magic resistance."

Lancer scowled. "Which one should I take?"

Then another lightning bolt came down from the skies, and the two split, leaping to the sides as the earth was torn asunder, the lightning creating a blasted crater with its energy.

They tensed as footsteps neared, and gripped their weapons tightly as two figures approached, slightly blurred from the misty night and smoke of the lightning.

An old man wearing a scarred and tattered white cloak with a red scarf wrapped around his neck, both articles of clothing glowing and pulsing from a spiderweb pattern of prana. A bronze staff in the shape of a snake was gripped tightly in one hand.

Beside him was a tall hirsute man in ancient iron armor of greaves, gauntlets, and a thick solid breastplate. His bell-shaped helmet had bull's horns attached to the sides, with a T-shaped opening on the front that widened at the bottom to show his mouth. A brown and red cape was attached to his shoulders, and a massive short-handled bronze axe held in one hand.

Scathach frowned at their appearance. The defenses of her field, even half-done, were quite powerful. Even Cu Chulainn would not have been able to pass through unscathed even with his high agility, and since none of these two seemed anywhere near Cu Chulainn's level in that field, that left only weathering the storm of spells that would have tried to destroy them.

The axeman might have a high rank in magic resistance, but she doubted there any more Sabers, and he definitely wasn't a Lancer, though perhaps it was a noble phantasm? But why was it that it was the Caster that had damaged clothing? Her senses detected the scarf and the cloak as magical items, but the damage upon the cloak was not part of the design. They were recently inflicted. By her defenses by the looks of it.

Why would a Caster take point? Even if they had gotten through by meeting each spell with his own, he should have stayed at the back, letting the warrior take the hits that got through. This pair was confusing...

Her musings were interrupted when the old man spoke, and his aged voice rang out across the field, still full of vigor despite his age. "I sense the taint of pagan gods in one of you." He declared accusingly, making the two frown.

The axe-wielder grinned, and he looked at Lancer. "That one, I think. Am I right?" His deep voice rumbled out.

A nod.

The Wrathbringer of God grinned. "Then he's mine." Already, he could feel himself strengthening and toughening by multitudes after designating his opponent. His strength was at its limit without revealing his identity, while from how

"_Earth, crush the heretics." _The staff-wielder ordered in ancient Hebrew, and the ground rose up ten feet, then moved forward like a wave intent on drowning the Irish.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Scathach scowled at the wave. "If only I had more time..." She muttered, her free hand forming runes at a rapid pace.

A pulse of anti-magic rang out from the combination, and the section of the wave that would have hit her collapsed inert, leaving her unharmed as the rest of the attack swept past her.

Another day, and her temple would have been finished, and any Caster who faced her at this field would have had their spells heavily reduced or outright nullified.

Then she mentally shrugged, and went back to the battle. No use crying over spilled milk after all.

She stepped forward, another rune combination forming before her. "Burn, you asshole." She declared, and the array activated.

Her surroundings temperature dropped dozens of degrees below zero, flash-freezing all the water within the distance. Before her however, the air blurred, for all the heat had been transferred to the location. A tap of her finger upon the floating array, and the _heat _rushed out.

The enemy Caster, for what else could he be? Frowned in thought.

"_Rise, water, for God commands it." _He declared, slamming his staff on the ground.

The earth broke open, and a geyser of high-pressure water shot out at the moving blur.

It reached the invisible mass of heat, and the two attacks resulted in naught but the sudden appearance of steamy fog.

"None of that." She muttered, and a rune combination had wall of wind rushing out to clear away the mist and slam into her enemy.

Apparently, the Moses had the same idea, and their two wind spells impacted in the battle, resulting in a thunderclap of force that tore away the earth at the meeting point.

Then runes upon Scathach's armor burst to life, prominently on her legs, and her leap towards the enemy caused the ground to shatter to dust where she stood. The greatsword was sheathed, and throwing axes were drawn and thrown at an astounding speed.

Moses spun his staff halfway, and stabbed the snake-head into the ground. Ancient words were spoken, and when he moved his staff diagonally upward, the earth rose with it, blocking the dozens of throwing axes that nonetheless almost punched through the wall anyway.

With his limited agility, he backpedaled as fast as he could, and just in time.

The wall _shattered _from the force of Scathach's next blow, solid earth flying away in great shards from the force of the runemarked greathammer in her hands, the weapon visually oversized even for the tall woman. "Come on, get back here!" She shouted, grinning.

She raised her weapon, and slammed down the hammer upon the earth, certain runes she had put on the weapon glowing with power.

The earth _shook. _Shockwaves rang out and the ground sundered and opened in places. Moses himself stumbled, and it would have been the end for him as Scathach simply stopped gripping the hammer with its head stuck a foot into the ground, drawing two thin curved swords, scimitars, and rushing towards the vulnerable servant.

"**Brass Serpent." **He declared, pointing his staff at Scathach.

The bronze snake-staff came to life. Its size increased in magnitudes until it was thicker than a man, and proportionally long. The bronze reptile hissed, but its nature made it sound more like grinding steel, then lunged forward.

Scathach swore in some ancient tongue, reversing direction and somersaulting backwards as the snake sprang forward at speeds more in line with striking cobras, its fangs almost catching her.

She landed a dozen meters away, scowling at the rising enemy Caster and the large animal, which, when coiled, was as large as two cars piled together.

Moses grinned at her, putting a hand on the gigantic snake's head affectionately. "Don't like snakes, heretic? Too bad. _Attack._" The serpent uncoiled, slithering forward at a rapid pace unbecoming of its breed, its movements strangely...mechanical.

Scathach scowled, drawing her greatsword once more. "Yeah, fuck you too." Then she barked out a strange word, and the surroundings changed.

Runemarks suddenly littered the area, but not in the equal distribution she preferred; a haphazard, half-finished construction. Crude black walls rose up, while the sky seemed to grow even darker, half the stars blinking out of sight.

She gestured with her hand, and sent a patch of ground careening towards the snake, which hit it full on, throwing it back and stunning it.

The Witch of Dun Scaith drew a knife, then started rapidly carving runes onto her greatsword even as she dodged Moses' attacking spells, her battle-hardened mind slowly gaining a bead on Moses' fighting capabilities.

With ease born of experience, she predicted avenues of attack and reacted accordingly, avoiding dozens of lethal fireballs, earth spikes, and another lightning bolt from the prophet.

"Finished. Go bother someone else, you stupid reptile!" She shouted as the Brass Serpent drew near once more. She threw her arm back, still holding the greatsword, and let loose.

It flew like an arrow, point-first and never deviating, striking the snake through the middle of one of its coils up to the hilt, the rest of its length bursting through the other side and digging deep into the ground.

Large as the weapon was, the snake was even larger, and it should have been a minor annoyance at best.

Yet it could not budge the sword pinning it the ground. It struggled continuously, the earth around it getting pounded to dust with its movements, but it _could not_ get away.

Moses frowned at his staff-turned-beast. "Another one of your blasted spells, I presume?" More words in Ancient Hebrew were spoken, but this time, his spells seemed weaker, reduced somehow. Not badly enough to make the battle hopeless, but a noticeable difference nonetheless. It could be bypassed by applying more prana, but while his reserves were truly impressive, it was not limitless.

It could only be her temple. The fires had led him to attack because it was not yet done, otherwise the battle would have surely resulted in his defeat. He needed to end this.

Bright red flames formed around him, before flickering into shape as dozens of fiery wolves. He pointed towards her, and they bounded forwards.

Scathach's fingers flickered as she drew marks into the air, then she closed her hand into a fist, and water rushed from the surroundings into an amount large enough to drown several elephants. As the wolves drew near, she made a violent, all-encompassing gesture.

The water followed her movements, moving like a controlled tidal wave and snuffing out the wolves in one circular movement that left small clouds of steam in their midst.

Moses muttered at the ground, and at his command, the meager grass around him grew, changing into an ancient species of thick magical vines, liberally covered in thorns that dripped with an unknown substance. The earth rose with it in dozens of vine-covered clumps, and his will threw them towards her.

Runes were formed midair, and a screaming sphere of wind formed around Scathach as she called her greathammer back to her with a word. Then she proceeded to smash each chunk of earth with powerful swings of her hammer. The vines, as she expected, ruptured and released their venom at the slightest impact, but the wind kept any from splashing onto her.

"_Lightning, come to me." _Moses ordered, and another lightning bolt came down from the clear skies, only this time, it struck down onto his..._palm?_

Millions of volts of electricity touched down onto his hand, crackling with blinding light. The prophet grinned, before slamming his palm onto the ground.

The energy was released in a wave, and Scathach had to leap into the air to avoid the currents.

"_Lord, bring down your fire upon the infidel." _Moses prayed, dropping to his knees and raising his hands in supplication. The most heartfelt request he had given in the entire battle, and packed with more prana than ever before. The red scarf around his neck glowed brighter than ever as its true purpose became known, and it burst into ashes.

In answer a pillar of fire came down from the heavens, wide enough to completely encompass a car, and bright as the sun, momentarily lightning up the darkened bounded field like it was morning.

Scathach's eyes widened, then narrowed in concentration. A red spear appeared in her hands, and she grinned as she faced the pillar of divine flame about to strike her down.

"**Gae Bolg!" **Runes lit up along its length, a complex array of force and power and projection.

Her arm snapped forwards and upwards, and the Soaring Spear that Strikes with Death met the divine flames.

Cursed red energy met the fires of heaven, the red energy cutting through the light and reaching into the skies, yet it merely split the light, and the backlash of the two forces swept her up, swallowing her whole and sending her crashing to the ground.

Moses was dozens of meters away from the fire, yet he could feel the heat. Whatever grass that was left crackled and withered and died, and the air itself felt like dust in his lungs. It was the merciless desert sun all over again.

It existed for only a second or three, then it blinked out, leaving spots in his vision, before he wearily approached her location. A phantasm. Powerful as his mystic shroud was, a phantasm was even greater.

She was alive, and the battle was not yet over, though he _had _spotted her getting hit by the explosion, so at least some damage was dealt.

She stood up.

His eyes narrowed, and he stopped.

The charred figure stood up. Shakily, but _stood up. _

Her hair was charred and halfway falling off, and her skin was blistered and red, sometimes charred black, but she was _alive._

Scathach spat onto the ground, scowling as she ripped off the pitiful slag that was all that was left of her runemarked armor, ignoring the flashes of pain whenever she tore off metal that had melded with her skin, leaving only the burnt leather underneath. "Damn big fire you sent. Would have killed me if it wasn't for my spear." She squinted at him, noting the disappearance of the red scarf. "Huh. Wouldn't have pegged that as an offensive weapon." She shook her head. "Aw well..."

She raised both hands, and Moses noted with terrifying clarity how throughout the entire battle, she had only casted with _one hand. _

Scathach grinned at him, a too-wide smile that showed pearly white teeth. She looked like a predator. "Playtime's freaking over."

Runes were formed into the air, and it was all that Moses could do to defend himself.

A massive array was formed rapidly, a replica of her first attack in this battle. The runic combination drew in all ambient heat, only this time it had a much higher range, and there was much more heat to take in.

She didn't bother keeping it as only heat, and freely let it turn into a flame as large as a house, though not as bright as the pillar of fire from before.

"Eat this." She said, and gale-force winds carried the massive fires forward, a whirlwind of flaming death.

Moses tried to summon a deluge of water to nullify the attack, but Scathach's bounded field and his own lowered prana reserves after his attack meant all it did was lessen the fires, and not even significantly so, and the storm of fire swallowed him whole.

Scathach watched the roaring fires consume her enemy, his figure becoming indistinguishable in the flames. Nonetheless, she formed more arrays, ready to eliminate him if he survived as she walked towards him, the burns all over her body throbbing with pain each step.

As the fires faded, Moses' voice rang out from the fires. **"Plagues of Egypt: Locusts!" **

The air warped, and a nigh-deafening chittering sounded across the field. A shadow darker than the night sky moved, and a swarm of large black locusts came towards her, thrice as big as normal, armed with jagged fangs that could eat through solid wood.

The wind array from before was cast, more powerful this time, and the sphere of wind barely kept the locusts at bay, the monstrous beasts continuously bashing themselves at the shield, heedless of their deaths due to their sheer numbers.

From gaps between the swarm, Scathach caught sight of Moses, unharmed save for his cloak, which was even more tattered than before. _Wait..._

Her eyes widened. "You. You were the one who took the damage from all my defenses. That cloak of yours. It absorbs magical attacks."

The prophet nodded in confirmation. "If I had more time, I would have made it one of true magic resistance. Alas, I had too little, and had to settle with a shroud that could defuse a finite amount instead."

The witch grinned toothily. "Impressive. That firestorm, and my field's defenses too? That's quite a lot of punishment your shroud can take...Moses." She knew of him, and he was most certainly one of the greater heroic spirits around. No wonder he had managed to pass through her field's defenses, which would have been the equal of five more of the firestorm she had created.

The identified servant nodded once more. "Yes. I am indeed the prophet of legend. And now, I shall have to eliminate you for that knowledge."

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

His eyes opened.

"**Ark of the Covenant."**

The Ark appeared before him, a bulky object swathed in otherworldly blue cloth and the skins of phantasmal beasts.

_Dangerous. _Scathach's senses screamed to her, and she turned and ran as the coverings unwound from the Ark, revealing it in its true glory.

The Ark itself was an image incomprehensible to most mortals, an image that would drive them mad. And then the cover opened, revealing its contents.

Impossibly-colored lights flashed, brighter and fiercer than the sun. A pillar of heaven's light and fire that reached to the skies and pierced the dome of her bounded field.

For a moment, there was nothing in sight but the impossible lights, a blinding radiance that seared the eyes with their presence. Then the phantasm finished, and it was night once more.

Moses let out a deep breath. "What a troublesome enemy. Still, the power of God cannot be denied, and by his command you have been purged." He turned in the direction of Samson. "Now then, to kill that other-"

He stopped speaking.

Slowly, his gaze moved downward, where from his gut jutted out the blade of a jagged red spear.

Blood leaking out of his mouth, he turned his head, looking straight into the gray eyes of an even more bloodied, yet living, Scathach. "H-How? You are a Caster, and you are not divine. How can you possibly...?"

She shook her head, smiling the too-wide smile once more. "I am Scathach, Witch of Dun Scaith. Born of a mortal lineage, tainted never with the blood of the divine. I will not speak of how or why, but in my life, I slew so many monsters and men and wraiths and gods that I became as one like them, yet not."

The grail granted the knowledge unto him, and Moses's jaw dropped. "Divinity...fake. Because you are not immortal due to divine blood. You are immortal due to being a concept." He swallowed dryly. "Did I ever stand a chance?"

She laughed, before kicking him, the force dragging him painfully from the spear and onto the ground. "I'm just divine right now. Not immortal. I can be killed right now, but it's not as if I'd let you."

Moses gritted his teeth. "Very well." He grabbed the white cloak, and an application of prana had it shattering into a concussive force of energy that Scathach leapt away from.

His body screaming in pain with each movement, he spat out a word, and sent a mass of prana into the earth.

The earth around the Brass Serpent tightened, and impossible pressure was brought to bear against the greatsword. The parts of it in the earth warped and shattered, and though the rest of the blade was still impaled into its side, the serpent was _free._

It sprang to his command immediately, rushing towards Scathach with all the speed it could muster as Moses shouted for his companion.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

When the wave of earth was formed by the enemy Caster, Cu Chulainn simply leapt to the side, his remarkable agility ensuring he could avoid the attack.

What was _not _expected however was for the axeman to barrel through the wave itself and bull rush him.

The armored figure crashed onto the earth like the fist of an angry god, pounding it to dust with each step and shattering the wave into flying chunks with the impact, not even slowing down as he bulldozed through the structure and swung his bronze axe at the man in blue.

Lancer grinned at his enemy. Strong? Certainly. Fast? Compared to him? The enemy was disgustingly slow, and he easily sidestepped the overhead blow, thrusting his spear at the helmet's slit.

Then the missed strike hit the ground, and Lancer found the impact strong enough to make him stumble, and almost get caught by a telegraphed gauntleted uppercut from the axeman.

As it was, he somersaulted backwards, avoiding the backswing of the axe, landing meters away from the armored warrior. "Alright. Just what the hell are you?"

The axeman's deep rumbling voice chuckled darkly. "I am His Wrathbringer. Class? Berserker. Now get back here!" He grabbed onto the earth, and in a display of insane strength, ripped out a chunk the size of a truck in one hand, throwing it at the spearman at lethal velocities.

Lancer hopped to the side, gritting his teeth at the apparent overwhelming strength of his enemy. No wonder he seemed so unskilled compared to other heroic spirits. He doubted the man had to employ much finesse nor learn how to properly fight with that kind of strength. A single hit, and the enemy was paste.

"Well then, time to take advantage of that." He sped forward and beyond his enemy, avoiding the vertical swing of the axe, Gae Bolg cutting a thin line across his unprotected shoulder. Then he reversed direction, kicking up a cloud of dust as he _leaped _back in Berserker's direction, the crimson spear cutting past the iron armor and lightly slashing open his side, drawing blood.

"Stop running, you whelp!" The hirsute man screamed, swinging the axe wildly, but hitting nothing but air and ground, though each hit caused a sizable crater to erupt from the force.

"And get hit? I'm not stupid." Lancer remarked, and his next hit sliced thinly into the axeman's thigh.

A dozen more exchanges followed, leaving Lancer untouched and Berserker with a dozen more flesh wounds.

Lancer frowned at the meager injuries he had caused. The guy was _tough. _He was going to need to put more force into his blows to truly wound him. "What the hell are you made of?"

Samson grinned at him. "Blame clean living." He declared not at all bothered by his wounds.

Lancer gripped his spear tightly, and runes lit up. "Let's try this again. Gar." The rune of Gungnir, spear, lit up, and the spear lightened in his hand. He ducked under another frustrated swing, and just before he was about to hit... "Gebo."

The balance shifted from being almost weightless, to as heavy as a boulder, and Samson grunted when the spear slammed into his thigh, punching easily through his tough skin this time.

The wrathbringer growled low in his throat, Lancer hopping away to avoid his retaliatory backswing. "Playtime's over, demigod. Now then..." He raised his axe with both hands, and marks along the bronze axehead glowed with power. He slammed it down onto the earth.

A shockwave of force erupted, and the earth _exploded, _rupturing in an expanding circle like a facsimile of a tidal wave, ten feet high.

When Lancer saw it, he bent his legs and _jumped. _One moment, he was standing on the ground, and the next, he was high in the air, well above the reach of the attack.

Then he heard the earth rupture, and Samson's seven foot tall figure shot up like a cannonball.

"Oh shi-" Berserker slammed into him with a mighty thunderclap of force, and they crashed into the ground, separating with the impact.

Samson stood up easily, smiling as Lancer shakily stood up. He raised his axe, and crashed it into the earth once more.

It was a different attack. Instead of an all-encompassing circle, it was a single wall, faster for its smaller size.

Cu Chulainn's hand flickered, and a similar wall of earth met Samson's, the two canceling each other out into a cloud of dust as a gust of wind followed.

Samson frowned. The dust cloud came out of nowhere was larger and thicker than it should be...magic? Who ever heard of a Lancer using magic?

Then the feeling of **murder** came into the air, and he looked wildly in every direction, heart beating faster at the sense of danger.

"**Gae Bolg." **

A noble phantasm was declared. Reality and causality was written. With the power of the Barbed Spear of Piercing Death, one did not need to see the enemy. The weapon would lead him to them.

The weapon slammed home, crunching through the thick iron breastplate and piercing Samson's heart.

Berserker gazed down into the smiling face of Cu Chulainn.

The Irishman grinned. "I win."

Then Samson's fist landed into his gut with stone-crushing force, and the air left his lungs as he was propelled away like a rag doll.

Samson grabbed the spear, nonchalantly pulling it out and throwing the weapon to the side. "That wasn't nice."

Lancer stood up, his stance unsteady. "The hell? I hit you. I _know _I did." He held out his hand, the spear manifested in his grasp.

Samson nodded. "That you did. Not that it'll make a difference. I was made to fight on until my head was cut off. A little hole in the heart is but an annoyance." Then his shroud glowed with power, and his previous wounds visibly healed, though he could still feel the hole in his chest. Nonetheless, the smile widened.

The Irishman twitched. "Great. Strong as fuck, tough as nails, battle continuation, AND regeneration? You've gotta be kidding me."

Samson smiled. "I don't kid." His axe dragged across the ground as he charged, and Lancer backpedaled to gain distance. The wrathbringer frowned. "Oh no you don't!" His arm snapped upwards, dragging the axe free, and with its separation, the earth burst forward, a gigantic spike of packed earth heading for the demigod.

Lancer ducked under it, the spike grazing the top of his hair, then forming a rune in the air.

Fire leaped out, a roar of dragon-like fire that Berserker defended from with another charging wall of earth. Then he spun around, suddenly face-to-face with Lancer.

"**Warp Spasm." **Ireland's Son of Light declared, and the air changed, charged with madness and death and rage and fury.

Then his mouth gaped open, too wide, showing off teeth that were visibly growing and changing into a haphazard mess.

A sound rumbled out of his throat. A horrifying amalgamation of a roar and a hiss and screech, magnified a thousand times into an indistinguishable sound that could only carry one meaning: _**kill.**_

Lancer's arm snapped forwards, too fast to react to, slamming into Samson's stomach and shattering the iron breastplate. The force continued, carrying Samson backwards and into the dust meters behind him, choking on air.

He had barely gotten to his feet when Lancer got within range.

A blindingly fast swipe with the red spear came at him, and he barely managed to bring up his axe to block it. He saw the other arm come forward for a punch, and he met it with his own, shockwaves forming in the air from the impact.

The Wrathbringer's eyes widened. Lancer's strength...it had increased by _a lot. _It was but a single rank down from his own.

Then Lancer's foot slammed into his kneecap, and Samson grabbed Lancer by the arm, intending to throw him as far as possible.

Hot. Too hot. The skin was like a furnace, hot enough to burn.

It was then, that Samson got a good look as to what he was facing.

An abomination. Samson couldn't call it anything else. Lancer had grown, taking foot and a half in height. His body had distended, bloated in some places with the sheer mass of muscles, the limbs set in improper sizes and shapes. His hair stood straight up, each strand a steel needle, and his eyes bulged, somehow having grown to different sizes and colors and shapes. His blistering skin was a bright fiery red, and even now he could see the cold air steaming around him.

Lancer leaned forward, neck extending beyond what should be possible, and his fanged maw bit into his shoulder, tearing off a hunk of flesh.

Samson swore, and he slammed the axe onto Lancer's face, swearing as the head simply went with the impact, bending impossibly to the side.

The spear moved, stabbing into Samson's side, and Lancer's enhanced strength meant that it stabbed deep and true, rupturing several organs.

"Oh, FUCK THIS!" Samson swore, ripping off the rawhide trying his hair.

The air shook, and Lancer, even in his madness, leaped away as Samson's fist slammed down, missing his skull and hitting the earth.

The ground _exploded, _a crater that could fit a car forming from the collision. Samson glared at him. "There. No limits. No restraint. It is _**on,**_ you little shit." He declared, attaching his axe to his belt, then going into a wrestling stance. "Bring it."

Lancer howled into the night sky, then leaped forward, dropping the spear as his arm distended and slammed into Samson, the wrathbringer's bones creaking with the impact. But he stood his ground, and when the warped warrior drew near, his own fist met Lancer's face with enough force to snap it completely backwards.

It was but the start. They rained so many blows upon each other of such strength and force that a lesser hero would have died in but a few seconds.

But they were not lesser heroes. Samson was the Wrathbringer of God, made to sunder and destroy the infidel, empowered by his will into an engine of divine destruction. Cu Chulainn was Ireland's greatest hero, a son of a major god, with a legend few could match and empowered by his warp spasm.

They stomped on the ground, raising clouds of dust with each step, and each impact of their blows caused the air to scream with the force. Their errant strikes cleaved the earth, and their fury-filled screams would have broken mortal eardrums with their volume.

Samson knew not how long they fought, only that it must have been a while, judging by all the destruction around them. There was no clear ground in sight. Everywhere was broken ground and deep craters.

He was getting tired. He needed to end this.

Berserker grabbed an arm even as the Lancer's other limb pummeled his side like a piston. The wrathbringer gritted his teeth and tightened his grip. With a roar of fury, he _tore off_ Cu Chulainn's limb, throwing the still-writhing arm to the side like so much trash.

In response, Lancer headbutted him with enough strength to shatter a boulder, and his needle-like hair punctured flesh and tore out an eye.

Screaming with rage, he grabbed a leg, and started slamming the warped warrior into the ground left and right, before throwing him to the side, breathing heavily from exertion.

Away from him, Lancer crashed to the ground in a heap, before uncoiling like an animal and rising to his feet, growling still like an animal. His hand shot to the side, lifting his still-writhing arm, and Samson gaped in shock when simply attaching it to the stump had it working as perfectly as before.

"...now that's just bullshit." The Nazirite muttered as the warped warrior screamed into the skies and charged once more.

"Berserker!" Moses' voice rang out, and a bolt of lightning struck Lancer, blowing him away as Samson turned to his ally, his white cloak gone, and a gaping wound through his stomach.

Samson blinked. "What happened?" What in the world...Moses. _Defeated? _What _was _that woman?

The prophet reached him and grabbed him by the neck. "We need to leave. That woman is a monster I was a fool to face. This is a lost cause." He coughed and spat out a wad of blood. "Leave. _Now."_

When a prophet told you to retreat, you _did as he said. _A lost cause for a prophet was certain death.

Samson gripped his axe once more. "Where's your staff?"

Moses glanced at the direction he came, where a loud, pained metallic hiss was suddenly heard. "Dead." He held out his hand, and the staff appeared, cut into three pieces. Unlike most phantasms it could be repaired, as he had made the phantasm himself in his legend, but it would take time.

Samson nodded. He raised the axe with both hands. "Eat this, you whoresons." Unbound by the Rawhide of Constraint, and facing a foes of such power, Samson's might exceeded measurement. Right then, his strength was immeasurable, and when he slammed down the mystic code upon the ground, its effect was unlike ever before.

A gigantic tidal wave dozens of feet high erupted, an expanding half-circle headed for the enemy.

He limbered his axe and grabbed Moses, leaping away, his jumps covering vast distances due to his immense strength, which slowly lowered as they got farther away from the enemy.

"Here, take this. My battle continuation will keep me alive. You have none." He said, passing his shroud, the only one remaining from the battle, to Moses.

The prophet grunted in thanks, taking the holy cloth and already feeling his wounds healing. "That woman...was a living concept of victory. I could not detect any divinity because her immortality was conceptual, not divine." He frowned. "I was lucky to survive."

Samson gritted his teeth. "Concept of...victory? God damn it all. How do you beat that?"

Moses sighed as he drifted asleep. "The Lord...will provide."

The rest of the time was spent in silence.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Cu Chulainn chuckled as he viewed the battlefield. "Well, that was fun."

Scathach scowled at the ruined field and the half-finished temple. "Easy for you to say. Half of what I managed to do is ruined. This will take another half of a day to finish."

Lancer shrugged. "I got a good fight. That's pretty much all that I asked for in this war."

The caster sighed and simply went back to work on her temple. "And I want to _win. _Never forget that. Now go make yourself useful and clear up the field. You can do that much, at least."

Bazett walked out of the house, eyes wide at the destruction. "What happened here?"

Lancer, smiling even as he formed runes to raise and level the ground, replied. "A caster and a berserker came knocking. Don't know about the caster, but the berserker was Samson of Israel. No wonder he didn't activate madness enhancement. He doesn't _need _the upgrade." He laughed. "It'll be fun to fight him again."

Caster absently studied some of the Runemarks as she spoke. "Moses of Egypt. He's as powerful as his legend makes him out to be." She grinned toothily. "Still won though. Aren't you happy you got us?"

Bazett nodded. "The Sabers will be just as tough, and there's four of them." She smiled. "Still, good work."

Lancer gave her a thumbs up, while Scathach simply went back to her temple-creation.

**Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

**Yeah. Napoleon has an entire country's worth of phantasmal artillery pieces, Cu Chulainn can activate warp spasm, Scathach can use anti-army Gae Bolg without a running start, Samson's power is proportional to the danger of the opponent (Gil is gonna be FUN, oh, and during the battle he had A+++ strength and A+ endurance. EX without the Rawhide), and Moses just called on an artillery strike from God. Yeah, I totally just called on a Flame Strike. Because Moses functions like a DnD cleric in many ways. That, and Old Testament God tended to use a lot of Flame Strikes. **

**I love this fic so much for letting me write this madness.**

**Also, I'm surprised none of you guys figured out both of Rin's servants (some got one), seeing as she was the last to summon. I mentioned I was gonna have Simo Hayha in this fic, and I mentioned a Julius Caesar sheet in the ND Servant's sheets in the Rider section. Oh, and if the words of the summoning turned out clunky, blame the Let's Play Fate thing I took it from. That's what it said there and that's what I used. If you have a better version, feel free to show it so I can replace mine.**

**So, the servant sheets have been updated with the shown phantasms and servants. Simo Hayha and Julius Caesar are now visible, though not their phantasms. Also, I raised Scathach's divinity (fake) to A+. Because if Gil was A+ by being 2/3 divine, then Scathach is A+ because she was, in all practicality, a god by that time. I would have written it as A++, but that's when she unleashes her phantasm.**

**Anyway, hope you guys found everything awesome and in character. I'm scared about writing Gil because I have plans with him that involve thinking beyond his own arrogance. I tried to write him as in character as possible and yet fit into the plot, with Napoleon's own A+ charisma functioning to make him **_**listen **_**for once. Tell me how well it worked, and feel free to make theories as to what I have planned. **

**Finally, I've been proofreading the past chapters. In Aabidah's summoning, her used Zabaniya makes more sense now. Also, Shirou and Sakura's conversation is smoother now.**

**Now then, review. It feeds me.**

Volumen Hydragyrum

_Kirei: It's a hundred and six kilometers to Fuyuki, we've got a filled Holy Grail, half a box of Origin bullets, it's spring again, and we're wearing trench coats._

_Kiritsugu: Hit it._


End file.
